MACREADY AND _RIENZI_
In the previous chapter we mentioned that _Rienzi_ was not ready
until 1826 and that its production at Covent Garden during that year
was postponed because of a disagreement between Macready and Young.
As a matter of fact the play was finished to the mutual satisfaction
of its author, and her friends Talfourd and Harness, early in 1825,
but when submitted to Macready he would only accept it on condition
that certain rather drastic alterations were made. In this he was
perfectly justified for, be it remembered, he was not only an actor
of high rank but a critic of remarkable ability—a combination of
scholar and actor which caused him to be consulted on every point
connected with the drama and whose judgment was rarely wrong.
Upon hearing his decision Miss Mitford appears to have lost her
composure—we will charitably remind ourselves that she had put much
labour and thought into this play—and to have rushed off to consult
the two friends who, having read the play, had already pronounced it
ready for presentation. Upon hearing Macready’s suggestions Harness
was considerably piqued, the more so as in addition to his clerical
duties, he was, at this time, enjoying a considerable reputation
as a dramatic critic, his writings in the magazines being eagerly
looked for and as eagerly read when they appeared. There is no doubt
that he, backed up by Talfourd, counselled Miss Mitford not to
adopt Macready’s suggestions, but Macready was not the man to brook
interference from outsiders and told Miss Mitford that not only must
she alter the play in accordance with his views, but without delay
if she required him to produce it. This naturally placed the author
in an awkward position for she knew, as Macready knew, that he was
the person for whom the play had been written and that, did he refuse
it, there was no other person on the English stage who could, by
any chance, do justice to it. To refuse his request would mean a
serious loss to her, and so, humiliated for the moment, she set to
work in great haste to carry out Macready’s wishes. It was done with
an ill grace, for it seemed to Miss Mitford as so much unnecessary
labour, especially as critics like Talfourd and Harness had said
so. It was unfortunate that, in her bitterness, she overlooked
the fact that Macready was, under the circumstances, entitled to
every consideration, seeing he had most at stake in the matter of
reputation, etc.
The story of this little breeze got about—possibly it only
reached the ears of a few—but it got about, and some person, some
evil-disposed person, fully cognizant of the feud which existed
between Kemble and Macready wrote an open letter “To Charles Kemble,
Esq., and R. W. Ellison, Esq., On the Present State of the Stage,”
in which the writer urged these gentlemen to exercise themselves and
prevent the Drama from “going to the dogs,” suggesting the cause of
and offering a remedy for the degeneration. The article was published
in _Blackwood’s Magazine_ for June, 1825, and bore indubitable
evidence of having been written by some person possessed of an
extraordinarily intimate knowledge of Miss Mitford and her affairs.
It began:—“Gentlemen,—It will, I fear, appear to you as somewhat
officious that a stranger, possessing no other skill in the mysteries
of theatrical politics than the constant perusal of every play bill,
and a very frequent seat in the middle of the pit can afford him,
should thus attempt to call away your thoughts from the many anxious
and perplexing occupations in which you are engaged, and demand your
attention to his unsolicited advice on the management of Covent
Garden and Drury Lane.” Having thus introduced himself the writer
proceeded to animadvert on what he asserted was the decline in the
public taste for the legitimate drama, instancing the fact that the
managers had been forced to introduce variety shows in order to keep
up the receipts; and he went on to say that “the present depressed
state of the national drama is the fault of your GREAT ACTORS—I
mean of your _soi-disant_ GREAT ACTORS—of Messrs. Kean, Young and
Macready.” The arrogant pretensions of these gentlemen were such as
not to allow an author to tell his story exactly as he conceived it.
“Would any play so written, have a chance of being represented?”
proceeded the writer, arguing that it would not because these actors
refused to play any but the hero and insisted on the author keeping
down the minor rôles.
“Are you not compelled to sacrifice the interest of the author which
ought to be your first concern, whether you consider your duty to
the public or yourselves, to the caprice and absurd vanity of your
principal performers? The author must obey the directions of the
performer; the whole order and process of the work is reversed; and
the dramatist is expected to mould his character to fit the actor,
instead of the actor modelling his preparation to the conception of
the author.”
Up to this point the article, though offensive to the actors named,
was nothing more than the outburst of a man who might be voicing a
public grievance; but he continued in a strain which proved at once
that he was something more than a lover of and regular attendant at
the play—that he was indeed in the confidence of one, at least, of
the authors he was championing. “The history of the lately rejected
tragedy of _Rienzi_ is strikingly illustrative of the evils that
attend the operation of the present system. The authoress, a person
not a little distinguished in the literary world, had selected, for
the exercise of her talent, a passage of history which Gibbon has
recommended as peculiarly calculated for dramatic representation. The
plot was completed and shown to Mr. Macready. He was delighted with
the production. The chief part was very effective both in language
and situation, and only required a very few and slight alterations
to render it worthy the abilities of any of the _great_ actors.
He wished an entirely new first act; this was indispensable; that
_Rienzi_ might be introduced striking to the earth an injurious
patrician, as Moses smote the Egyptian, because this circumstance
had peculiarly pleased Mr. Macready’s fancy when a boy at school. To
make room for the introduction of this important incident, the second
and third acts, to the great injury of the general interest and
original arrangement of the tragedy, were to be compressed into one.
The fifth act, which had been framed in the most strict conformity
with the truth of History, was to be re-written; that the character
of _Rienzi_ might, to the very dropping of the curtain, hold its
paramount station on the stage.
“All these alterations were to be _made in a fortnight_. The
authoress was then to return to town with the play and superintend
in person the rehearsals and the _getting-up_ of the piece; but at
all events the work must be ready _in a fortnight_. In a fortnight
the play was mangled and distorted, and fitted to Mr. Macready’s
exaggerated and melo-dramatic measures of performing; the author
arrived in London to attend the bringing-out of the play; she called
on Mr. Macready with the manuscript; to her utter astonishment, he
received her with the greatest coolness:—‘There was no hurry for the
play. The managers had another piece at the theatre, which must at
all events be produced first.’”
Having thus divulged details of a most intimate character—circumstantial
to a degree—the writer proceeded to argue that this sort of
treatment must make authors of the front rank give up dramatic work
in disgust, and then wound up with the suggestion that if these
great actors, with their absurd mannerisms, refused to abide by a
code which would banish the present bad state of affairs, then let
them go to the country and in twelve months they would be completely
forgotten.
It will be readily conceded that the article was extremely offensive
towards Macready, and, as he afterwards maintained, very damaging
too. He claimed that the damage it made to his reputation resulted
in the reduction of his income by one-half and that it made him
seriously consider an immediate retirement from the stage—a course
which he abandoned only because of his children and their dependence
upon him.
The article was an anonymous one, signed “Philo-Dramaticus” and by
reason of the inner knowledge it revealed of what were unquestionably
private conversations between Miss Mitford and Macready, suspicion
fell on William Harness. Taxed with its authorship, he denied the
accusation and was not believed. The subject was one upon which every
one was talking; in club-land and in stage-land the question was
being continually asked: “Who wrote the _Blackwood_ article?”
Poor Macready was sorely wounded and wrote to Miss Mitford. The
letter reached her at a time when she was suffering from an abscess,
confined to her bed. She dreaded these embroilments; she was for
peace; but in this case she was, to some extent, to blame in not
acting on Macready’s advice, without seeking the further advice of
her friends. Macready now desired to learn from her whether she knew
the author of the malignant article, and whether she had authorized
the person to write so in her behalf. The situation was difficult;
how to answer these queries she knew not. That she knew, or
suspected, the author, is without a doubt for she must have written
to that person on the point. In her extremity she got her mother to
write to their mutual friend Talfourd and since it is so important we
quote it in full:—
“MY DEAR FRIEND,—I am obliged to make use of my mother’s hand to
write to you having been for a week past confined to my bed with
an abscess which prevents me turning on either side—it proceeds
from neglected inflammation, I having taken it for a boil—There
is no danger I believe although much fever and very great pain.
The letter from Mr. Macready which I got arrived this morning—I
have not answered it, nor shall I until I hear from you—What can I
say? You will see from the enclosed note (_which I send in strict
confidence_) he wrote the article. I suspected William Harness and I
asked him and you see what he says—What can I say? The statement,
however inaccurate in trifling matters, is yet substantially true
_as you will know_—although it is possible that had I behaved
with more patience and submission (and I most sincerely wish I
had) the result might have been different—It is very rarely that
a quarrel takes place between two persons without some touch
of blame on either side—and a sick bed is not a place to deny
one’s faults—Still the statement is substantially true and was
undoubtedly derived from my own information—in which is bitterness
of disappointment—although the publication was so far from being
authorized by me that I do not know anything that ever gave me more
pain, but what can I do? I cannot disavow my kind and zealous friend
William Harness—I cannot disavow that part of the statement which
is true—and nothing less than an entire disavowal would satisfy Mr.
Macready, yet God knows how I dread one of his long narratives—What
can I do? I have had to-day another most pleasant note from Mr.
Harness—They are delighted with _Charles I_—Mr. Hope read it
without laying down and said: ‘It was a very fine play—that Charles
was excellent, and Cromwell excellent, the Queen very good and the
action quite sufficient.’ This is very pleasant from the author of
_Anastatius_—William does not say a word about Cromwell’s cant,
and if he, the clergyman, does not mind it, I should hope that
George Colman[20] would not, especially as it is now a high tory
play. I shall tell William to send the MS. to your house or Chambers
(_which?_) as soon as I know you are returned.
“It is certainly quite a new thing especially Cromwell—For in spite
of my having written Charles _up_ as much as possible, Oliver is the
life of the piece—God bless you my dear friend—
“Kind regards from all—
“Ever yours,
“M. R. M.”
“Could you write to Mr. M.? Would that be prudent? I don’t know that
it would—He evidently wants a complete disavowal—I wonder what he
means to do—Do write me your advice most minutely—And pray forgive
the trouble.”
Dismissing from our minds that portion which deals with “Charles I”
and what the critics thought of it and confining ourselves to the
other matter, we shall plainly see that Miss Mitford’s suspicions as
to the author had undergone a change by her receipt of the note from
the real culprit and as she mentions her original suspicion regarding
William Harness we may permissibly infer that he and the culprit
were not one and the same. What Talfourd did with the note which was
submitted to him in strict confidence is not known to us. Probably
he returned it to Miss Mitford. In any case the letter from which we
took our copy bore no clue, and the identity of the person who wrote
the offending article cannot therefore be revealed. It is, however,
quite clear from the postscript that Miss Mitford was apprehensive
lest Macready should resort to law and that is a view which is
strengthened by her appeal to Talfourd, who was a lawyer, to write
his advice most minutely.
Whether Miss Mitford ever replied to Macready, and, if so, what
was its purport, are questions which we can only surmise from a
statement, made by Macready, some years later, but we do know that,
for many years after, the great actor nursed a grievance against Miss
Mitford and cherished a bitter resentful feeling against Harness,
believing the latter to be the person who had written the _Blackwood_
article. In his _Diary_, after an interval of eleven years—i.e.
February, 1836—recalling his endeavours to be of service to Miss
Mitford he writes of her as requiting him “by libel and serious
injury,” while throughout that and the following year are many
entries containing disparaging remarks about her and her “inability
to write a play.”
Of Harness, in this same _Diary_, he wrote still more bitterly. “I
believe the Rev. Mr. Harness was among my slanderers at the time” is
a reference to the old grievance, written under date June 30, 1835.
In the July following he classes Harness with those “who gain their
livelihood and draw their gratifications from the imagined triumphs
of their envious and malignant nature”; in March, 1836, he writes of
Harness’ “blackguardism and rascality” and so on, frequently through
the _Diary_ until January 8, 1839. On this day Harness called on him
by appointment to discuss a play by Mrs. Butler (Fanny Kemble) and,
after the business was transacted, Macready detained him by saying
there was another matter on which he wished to speak with him. “I
observed to him that whatever faults of character might be ascribed
to me, I was incapable of doing any one an injury wittingly; that
my notions of honour and virtue, such as they were, were strictly
revered by me, and if I had done him a wrong, I held myself bound to
expatiate [_sic_] it in every possible way. I then mentioned to him
the libellous article which in June, 1825, had been written against
me in _Blackwood’s Magazine_; the effect it had had in raising _the
Press_ against me; the partial contradiction that Miss Mitford had
given it.... He was evidently much embarrassed and seemed to suffer
much; his mode of expressing himself was confused and _rambling_; he
said that he must acknowledge that he was inculpated so far as that
he had heard the story told by Miss Mitford, and had communicated
it to the writer of the article, but that he had not written it....
I told him that I was very glad to hear that he was not the author,
as I was happy to think well of all men, and was very sorry that I
had suspected him of the fact. He was going away, when he turned
back, having passed the door, and said, ‘I think we ought to shake
hands.’ I gave him my hand, saying, ‘I was very happy to do so,’ and
we parted. My heart was much lighter, and I fear his was _much, very
much_ heavier, as it is evident, though not the author, that he was
deeply implicated in that shocking transaction—that assassination of
my character. I think of him with perfect charity, and with the most
entire and cheerful forgiveness.”[21]
Thus ended this extraordinary and lengthy feud begotten of a trifling
incident which unwisdom magnified. Truly Miss Mitford might justly
doubt the proverb that “in multitude of counsellors there is safety.”
It was a sorry business in which neither of the participants can be
said to have shone.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] George Colman the Younger, Examiner of Plays (1824-1836).
[21] _The Diaries of William Charles Macready_, 1833-1851, edited by
William Toynbee, London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1912, 2 vols.