NEW IDEAS; NEW THEATRES; NEW AUTHORS; AND THE NEW ACTORS.
Early in the present century, Mr. Twiss published his _Verbal Index
to Shakspeare_; and this led to an attack upon the poet and the
stage, as fierce, if not so formidable, as the onslaught of Prynne
and the invective of Collier. The assailant, in the present case,
was an anonymous writer, in the _Eclectic Review_, for January 1807.
As an illustration of the feeling of dissenters towards the bard
and players generally, this attack deserves a word of notice. The
writer, after denouncing Mr. Twiss as a man who had no sense of the
value of time, in its reference to his eternal state; sneering at
him as one who would have been more innocently employed in arranging
masses of pebbles on the sea shore; and bewailing "the blind devotion
which fashion requires to be paid at the shrine of Shakspeare,"
professes to recognise "the inimitable excellences of the productions
of Shakspeare's genius;" and then proceeds to illustrate the sense of
the recognition, and to pour out the vials of his wrath, after this
fashion:--
"He has been called, and justly, too, the 'poet of Nature.' A slight
acquaintance with the religion of the Bible will show, however, that
it is of human nature in its worst shape, deformed by the basest
passions, and agitated by the most vicious propensities, that the
poet became the priest; and the incense offered at the altar of his
goddess will continue to spread its poisonous fumes over the hearts
of his countrymen till the memory of his works is extinct. Thousands
of unhappy spirits, and thousands yet to increase their number, will
everlastingly look back with unutterable anguish, on the nights and
days in which the plays of Shakspeare ministered to their guilty
delights. And yet these are the writings which men, _consecrated_ to
the service of Him who styles Himself the Holy One, have prostituted
their pens to illustrate! such this writer, to immortalise whose
name, the resources of the most precious arts have been profusely
lavished! Epithets amounting to blasphemy, and honours approaching to
idolatry, have been and are shamelessly heaped upon his memory, in
a country professing itself Christian, and for which it would have
been happy, on moral considerations, if he had never been born. And,
strange to say, even our religious edifices are not free from the
pollution of his praise. What Christian can pass through the most
venerable pile of sacred architecture which our metropolis can boast,
without having his best feelings insulted, by observing, within a few
yards of the spot from which prayers and praises are daily offered to
the Most High, the absurd and impious epitaph upon the tablet raised
to one of the miserable retailers of his impurities? Our readers who
are acquainted with London, will discover that it is the inscription
upon David Garrick, in Westminster Abbey, to which we refer. We
commiserate the heart of the man who can read the following lines,
without indignation:--
'And till eternity, with power sublime,
Shall mark the mortal hour of hoary time,
Shakspeare and Garrick like twin stars shall shine
And earth irradiate with a beam divine.'
"'_Par nobile fratrum!_' your fame _shall_ last during the empire of
vice and misery, in the extension of which you have _acted_ so great
a part!"
There is much more in this style, and it seems rather over-strained,
however well meant. I must confess, too, that the writer had some
provocation to express himself strongly, not in the writings of
Shakspeare, nor in Twiss's Concordance, but in the meanness and
blasphemy which Mr. Pratt, or Courtenay Melmoth, infused into his
wretched epitaph on Garrick's monument. Charles Lamb has hardly gone
further in attacking the monument itself. "Taking a turn the other
day, in the Abbey," he says, "I was struck with the affected attitude
of a figure which I do not remember to have seen before, and which,
upon examination, proved to be a whole length of the celebrated Mr.
Garrick. Though I would not go so far, with some good Catholics
abroad, as to shut players altogether out of consecrated ground,
yet I own I was not a little scandalised at the introduction of
theatrical airs and gestures into a place set apart to remind us of
the saddest realities. Going nearer, I found inscribed, under this
harlequin figure, a farrago of false thoughts and nonsense."
Such falsehood and nonsense helped to bring the stage into disrepute;
and the pulpits, for seven or eight years, often echoed with
disparaging sentiments on the drama--and quotations from Shakspeare.
Nevertheless, those who never worked, as well as those who were
over-worked, needed amusement; and what was to be done?
"The devil tempts the industrious; idle people tempt the devil,"
was a saying of good Richard Baxter. Good men took it up in 1815.
Well-intentioned preachers denounced the stage, and recommended
rather an unexceptionable relaxation; the sea side, pure air, and all
enjoyments thereon attending. But, while audiences were preached down
to the coast, and especially to Brighton, there were zealous pastors
at the latter place, who preached them back again. One of these, the
Rev. Dr. Styles, of Union Street, Brighton, did his best to stop
the progress of London-on-sea. He left the question of the stage
for others to deal with; but, in his published sermons, he strictly
enjoined all virtuously-minded people to avoid watering-places
generally, and Brighton in particular, unless they wished to play
into the devil's hands. He denounced the breaking up of homes, the
mischief of minds at rest, and the consequences of flirting and
philandering. He looked upon a brief holiday as a long sin,--at the
sea side; and, with prophecy of dire results attending on neglect of
his counsel, he drove, or sought to drive, all the hard workers, in
search of health and in the enjoyment of that idle repose which helps
them in their search, _back_ to London! Then, as now, England stood
shamefully distinguished for the indecorum of its sea-coast bathers;
but, with certain religious principles, whereby to hold firmly, the
good doctor does not think that much ill may befall therefrom; and he
sends all erring sheep with their faces towards London, and with a
reference to Solomon's Song, above all things!--bidding them to wait
for the south wind of the Holy Spirit to blow over their spices!
On the other hand, good men in France were then seeking to render
theatrical amusements universally beneficial; and a pamphlet, by
Delpla, suggested a few reforms which evoked notice in this country.
In some respects, the project was a development of that proposed
in England, in 1732, when the idea of turning Exeter Change into
a theatre and college was first started. M. Delpla held, that the
public required stage exhibitions, but that they did not always
know what was good for them. He thought that in every country there
ought to exist a theatrical board, or censorship, composed, not of
government officials, but of poets, reviewers, retired actors, and
men of letters generally. There would then be, he thought (poor
man!), a reconstruction of theatrical literature: the beautiful,
preserved; the exceptionable, omitted; and the instructive, imported.
Historic truth was never to be departed from; local costume was to be
strictly observed; _dénouements_, in which virtue looked ridiculous,
or vice seemed triumphant, were to be severely prohibited; and poets,
critics, and ex-actors were to be charged with this responsibility!
M. Delpla considered that, by such means, the theatre and the pulpit
would be on a level, as public instructors; or, if any difference
could be between them, the greater efficiency of instruction would
rest with the stage. If they were simply equal, the writer concluded
that bishops themselves would show their exemplary presence in the
side boxes!
The French Government only adopted that part of M. Delpla's project
which spoke of a censorship; but as the censors were not competent
persons,--poets, critics, actors, literary men,--but "officials,"
they often came to grief. Their greatest calamity I may notice here,
though it befell them at a later period, when a new law rendered
the old censorship more stringent. To the authorised officials two
well-known dramatic writers sent a new tragedy for examination
and approval. It was returned in a few days, with 1500 erasures.
The authors were required to modify 300 lines, replace 500 words,
shorten 12 scenes, and change a score of names, all of which, in
the original, was considered obnoxious to public tranquillity,
political order, and dramatic propriety. On receiving the corrected
manuscript, the rebuked authors addressed the following note to the
censors:--"Gentlemen, we have the honour to acknowledge the receipt
of our censured manuscript, with an accompanying letter. We agree
with you in thinking that the passages marked for erasure may be of
that perturbative character which you suppose; but as we do not dare
to cut or modify the verses of Pierre Corneille, we prefer foregoing
the representation of 'Nicomède' at the 'Théâtre Français.'"
But let us get back to our own theatres, and to the manners of
audiences, between the commencement of this century and the coming of
Edmund Kean. Such manners are most strikingly illustrated by the O.
P., or _old price_ riots of 1809. In ten months a new Covent Garden
Theatre had risen, at an expense of £150,000. Smirke had taken for
his model the Acropolis of Athens, and in a narrow, flat street,
had built, or hidden, his imitation of the mountain fortress of the
Greeks. The house was unnecessarily large, and attendant costs so
heavy, that the proprietors raised the price of admission to the
boxes from 6s. to 7s., and to the pit, from 3s. 6d. to 4s. They had
also converted space, usually allotted to the public--the third tier,
in fact--into private boxes, at a rental of £300 a year for each. The
pit and box public resolved to resist, and the gallery public having
a grievance in its defective construction,--the view being impeded by
solid divisions, and the _run_ of the seats being so steep that the
occupants could see only the legs of the actors at the back of the
stage,--joined the insurrection.
The house opened on the 18th of September 1809, with "Macbeth," and
the "Quaker." The audience was dense and furious. They sat with their
backs to the stage, or stood on the seats, their hats on, to hiss and
hoot the Kemble family especially; not a word of the performance was
heard, for when the audience were not denouncing the Kembles, they
were singing and shouting at the very top of their then fresh voices.
The upper gallery was so noisy, that soldiers, of whom 500 were in
the house, rushed in to capture the rioters, who let themselves down
to the lower gallery, where they were hospitably received. The sight
of the soldiers increased the general exasperation. "It was a noble
sight," said the _Times_, "to see so much just indignation in the
public mind;" and that paper scorned the idea that the prices were to
be raised, to pay such vanities as were exhibited by Mrs. Siddons and
John Kemble, who were on the stage "with clothes on their backs worth
£500."
Such was the first of nearly seventy nights of riot, out of which
the public issued with a cry of "victory," but under a substantial
defeat. In alluding to this matter, it is only necessary to notice
the additions to, or the variations in, the riot--in the conduct of
which the proceedings of the first night were imitated, with this
exception, that the insurrectionists did not enter the theatre till
half-price.
First came the introduction of placards and banners, for furnishing
pins to affix one of which, in front of the boxes, a lady received
an ovation; then speeches were made against the exorbitant salaries
of the Kembles, and prisoners were made of the speakers; magistrates
appeared on the stage to read the Riot Act, and the public, preparing
to rush on the stage itself, were deterred by the sudden opening of
all the traps.
The proprietors then assembled partisans by distributing _orders_,
and this introduced fighting. Between the combats, post-horns
confounded the confusion. Pigeons were let loose--symbols that the
public were pigeoned, and Kemble, compelled at last to come forward,
only gave double fury to the storm, by asking "what they wanted,"
and, on being told, by replying that such demand was not reasonable,
and they would think better of it! Lawyers addressed the house from
the boxes, encouraging the rioters, and, in allusion to the expensive
engagements of Catalani and others, declared that "the British
stage should not be contaminated by Italian depravity and French
duplicity"--at which declaration the modest and candid public flung
some highly-seasoned aspersions at the immoral private-boxes, and
retired, cheering.
Watchmen's rattles and "artillery whistles" next added to the storm
which tore the public ear. Placards increased. Cheers were given
for the British Mrs. Dickons, and groans for Madame Catalani. The
very name seemed to give birth to cat-calls. The actors in no way
interrupted the uproar. The _Times_ remarked that this was kind, as
the public had so often sat without interrupting them.
Kemble made stiff-necked speeches, and the house called him "fellow"
and "vagrant," said his head was "full of _a-ches_," declared they
would obey King George and not King John, and protested that they
would be sung to by "native nightingales, not foreign screech-owls."
The boxes looked like booths, so hung were they with placards and
banners--the most loudly cheered of which former was one which
announced that the salaries of the Kembles and Madame Catalani
amounted, for the season, to £25,575. "Mountain and Dickons, no Cats,
no Kittens!" Such is a sample of the O. P. row--the first series of
which ended by Kemble announcing, on the sixth night, that Catalani's
engagement had been cancelled, and that the house would be closed
until the accounts of the proprietors had been examined by competent
gentlemen. "Britons who have humbled a prince will not be conquered
by a manager!"--in that form was reply made by huge placard; and,
next day, the _Times_ told the public that they would not be bound by
the report of the examiners of the accounts, as the people had no
voice in the choice of arbitrators.
The report appeared in a fortnight. In few words, it amounted to
this:--If the present prices were reduced, the proprietors would
lose three-fourths per cent. on their capital; but as the reporters
could not even guess at the possible profits, the award was null.
Meanwhile, the _Times_ suggested that it would be better to reduce
the exorbitant salaries. There was Mrs. Siddons with £50 per night!
Why, the Lord Chief Justice sat every day in Westminster Hall, from 9
to 4, for half the sum.
The house re-opened on the 4th of October, with the "Beggar's Opera,"
and "Is he a Prince?" The war was resumed with increase of bitterness
in feeling, and of fury in action. Jewish pugilists, under the
conduct of Dutch Sam, were hired to awe and attack the dissentients.
The boxer, Mendoza, distributed orders, by dozens, to people who
would support the pugilists. The speech-makers were dragged away in
custody, and Bow Street magistrates sat, during the performances,
ready to commit them to prison-companionship with the worst class of
thieves; and they lent Bow Street runners to the managers, and these
runners, armed with bludgeons, charged and overwhelmed the dauntless
rioters in the pit. Dauntless, I say; for, on a succeeding night,
they fell upon the Jews in great number, and celebrated their triumph
in a bloody fray, by hoisting a placard with the words, "And it came
to pass that John Bull smote the Israelites sore!"
The incidents present themselves in such crowds, that it is hardly
possible to marshal them. Among them I hear the audience called a
"mob," from the stage; and I see Lord Yarmouth and Berkley Craven
fighting in the pit, on the part of the managers; and there are
"middies" and "gallant tars," or people so attired, addressing the
house, in nautical and nonsensical, and rather blackguard style, from
upper boxes and galleries; and Brandon is rushing in to point out
rioters, and rushing out to escape them; and gentlemen, with "O. P.,"
in gold, on their waistcoats, laugh at him; and there is up above an
encounter between two boxes, the beaten party in which slide down the
pillars to the tier below; and, suddenly, there is a roar of laughter
at an accident on the stage. Charles Kemble, in Richmond, has
stumbled in the fight, with Mr. Cooke as Richard, and fallen on his
nose, and the house is as delighted as if he had been their personal
enemy!
Then the ear is gratefully sensible of a sudden _hush!_ and the
voices of the actors, for once, are heard; but it is not to listen to
them the house is silent. A gentleman in the boxes has begun playing
"_Colleen_" on the flute; the piece goes on the while, but it is only
the instrumentalist who is listened to and cheered. Then, there is an
especially noisy night, when rows of standing pittites are impelled
one row over the other, in dire confusion. Anon, we have a night
or two of empty houses; the rioters seem weary, and the managers'
friends do not care to attend to see a Jubilee procession in honour
of George III., in which the cars of the individualised four
quarters of the globe are drawn by scene-shifters and lamplighters,
in their own clothes!
Because the public were thus kept away, the proprietors thought they
had gained a victory, and on the first appearance of a Mrs. Clark,
in the "Grecian Daughter," Cooke alluded, in a prologue, to the late
"hostile rage." This little scrap of exultation stirred the house to
fury again; and when Charles Kemble died as Dionysius, the half-price
rioters shouted as if one of their most detested oppressors had
perished.
Then came the races up and down the pit benches, while the play
was in progress; and the appearance of men with huge false noses,
making carnival, and of others dressed like women, who swaggered
and straddled about the house, and assailed the few bold occupants
of private boxes in terms of more coarseness than wit. Then, too,
was introduced the famous O. P. war dance in the pit, to see which
alone,--its calm beginning, its swelling into noise and rapidity, and
its finale of demoniacal uproar and confusion, even Princes of the
Blood visited the boxes; and having beheld the spectacle, and heard
the Babel of roaring throats, laughed, and went home.
Not so the rioters; these sat or danced till they chose to withdraw,
and then they went in procession through the streets, howling before
the offices of newspapers which advocated the managerial side, and
reserving their final and infernal serenade for John Kemble himself,
in front of his house, No. 89 Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury.
The lack of wisdom on the part of the management was remarkable. The
introduction of Jewish pugilists into the pit had been fruitless
in good; and now I find them and other questionable-looking people
admitted to the boxes. Of course, increase of exasperation followed.
The rioters celebrated the jubilee of their row on its fiftieth
night. Ladies who came wearing O. P. medals were cheered as if they
had been goddesses, and gentlemen who had lost hats in the previous
night's fray came in cotton night-caps, or with kerchiefs round their
heads. The pit was in a frenzy, and so was the indefatigable Brandon,
who captured two offenders that night, one of whom he charged with
calling "Silence!" and the other with "unnaturally coughing!" The Bow
Street runners also carried off many a prisoner, half-stripped and
profusely bleeding, to the neighbouring tribunal; and altogether the
uproar culminated on the jubilee night.
The acquittal of leading rioters gave a little spirit to some after
displays; but it led to a settlement. Audiences continued the affray,
flung peas on the stage to bring down the dancers, and celebrated
their own O. P. dance before leaving; but, at a banquet to celebrate
the triumph of the cause in the acquittal of the leaders, Mr.
Kemble himself appeared. Terms were there agreed upon; and on the
sixty-seventh night, a banner in the house, with "We are satisfied"
inscribed on it, proclaimed that all was over.
After such a fray the satisfaction was dearly bought. The 4_s._ rate
of admission to the pit was diminished by 6_d._, but the half-price
remained at 2_s._ The private boxes were decreased in number, but
the new price of admission to the boxes was maintained. Thus, the
managers, after all, had more of the victory than the people; but it
was bought dearly. In a few years the prices were lowered, but the
audiences, except on particular occasions, were not numerous enough
to be profitable. In fact the house was too large. The public could
not hear with ease what was uttered on the stage, and spectacle
was more suited to it than Shakspeare or old English comedy;--and
huge houses, high prices, and exorbitant salaries, soon brought the
British Drama to grief in the patented houses. Into this melancholy
question I do not wish, however, to enter. I have only noticed the O.
P. affair, as it marks an improvement in the manners and customs of
our audiences. In the preceding century, at Lincoln's Inn Fields and
Old Drury, rioters on less provocation went more desperate lengths.
Destruction even by fire was often resorted to by them. In the O. P.
matter, the insurrectionists did not even break a bench. Mixed with
the fury of fight there was an under-current of fun. The combatants
declared that they would attain their end by perseverance. They
persevered, and did _not_ attain it!
I have previously shown that the second George did not dislike to
witness an insurrection of a theatrical audience. The third George
was of a more placid temperament, and not only laughed at clowns
who swallowed sausages, but at allusions to his own agricultural
tendencies, which he accepted with a half-delighted: "I! I! good;
they mean _my_ sheep!" or some equally bright exclamation. As
_guests_, he did not invite actors to his house; but his eldest son
was more, and unnecessarily, condescending.
When Prince of Wales, and subsequently as Prince Regent, actors and
managers were not unfrequently invited to Carlton House. The former
seem to have appreciated their position better than the latter,
at least as far as we may learn from instances afforded by the
elder Bannister and the younger Colman. Charles Bannister told Mr.
Adolphus, who had questioned him as to the Prince's bearing, whether
it resembled that of Prince Hal, amid his boon companions? "The
Prince never assumed familiarity with us, though his demeanour was
always most gracious. We public performers sat all together, as all
guests took their places, according to their rank; our conversation
was to ourselves, and we never mixed in that of the general party,
further than to answer questions. At proper moments, with inimitable
politeness, he would suggest that he should be pleased with a song,
and the individual selected received his highest reward in praises
which his royal highness bestowed with an excellent judgment, and
expressed with a taste peculiar to himself."
When the younger Colman obtained a day-rule from the King's Bench, in
1811, to dine at Carlton House, whither he was conveyed by the Duke
of York, dramatic literature was not so pleasantly represented as
the stage had previously been in the persons of Charles Bannister
and his comrades. The guest behaved like a boor, the host still
like a gentleman. Among the offensive queries put by the former to
the Duke, was--"Who is that fine-looking fellow at the head of the
table?" The Duke urged him to be silent, lest he get into a scrape.
Colman would not be anything but ruffianly, and raising his voice, he
exclaimed,--"No! no! I want to know who that fine square-shouldered
magnificent-looking, agreeable fellow is, at the end of the table!"
The Duke remonstrated; saying, "You know it is the Prince." "Why,
then," said George, "he is your elder brother! I declare he doesn't
look half your age. Well! I remember the time when he sang a good
song, and as I'm out for a lark, for one day only, he will not
refuse an old playfellow, if he is the same good fellow that he used
to be." The Prince, with more condescension than was warrantable,
laughed, and then sang a song, which, being done, Colman roared out
applause at the magnificent voice, and with a round oath, expressed
his determination to engage the singer for the next season at his own
theatre! Peake, who tells the story in fuller detail, in his _Memoirs
of the Colman Family_, adds that the Prince was not offended, and
that Colman was, subsequently, his guest. If so, the former had
forgotten, since Charles Bannister's days, that propriety which the
actor so justly admired.
To the list of pieces by which this chapter is preceded, I direct the
attention of those who desire to know the character of our stage
literature half a century ago. I will not go so far as Gifford, who,
on contemplating a similar list, remarked: "All the fools in the
kingdom seem to have risen up and exclaimed, with one voice,--LET US
WRITE FOR THE THEATRES!" But the censure of Leigh Hunt is almost as
strong, when he says, that being present at the comedies of Reynolds
and Dibdin, he laughed heartily at the actors; but, somehow or
other, never recollected a word of the dialogue! The truth is, that
the actors, tragic as well as comic, were superior to the authors,
especially to those who wrote parts expressly for them, and composed
tipsy grimacers for Munden, and chatterers for Fawcett, and voluble
gentlemen for Lewis; and, let the scene of the play be in what remote
part of the world it might, always introduced an Irishman, because
Johnstone was there, ready and richly able, to play it. The authors
thus depended on the actors, and not on themselves; and this was so
much the case that Leigh Hunt remarked, that the loss of Lewis would
be as rheumatism to Reynolds; and the loss of Munden, "who gives
such agreeable variety of grin, would affect him little less than
lock-jaw!" The old sentimental comedy was bad enough, and we rejoice
to this day that Goldsmith overthrew it; but he was followed by
writers who mingled sentiment and farce together, who extorted tears,
exacted rude laughter, and violated nature in every sense. With all
this, however,--vapid in the reading, as some of these productions
now appear, they reflected, with great distortion, no doubt, the
manners of the times, and suggested, with some awkwardness, how those
manners might be improved. The more obtrusively loyal such writers
affected to be, the more loudly their _clap-traps_ were applauded.
The absence of servile sentiment, and the suspicion of the author
being led by liberal principles in politics, could only bring down
upon him condemnation. Poor Holcroft, who went through so many
painful varieties of life, and who was a radical before the radical
era, was one of the ablest writers of what was then called comedy,
but he often failed, because of his politics, and was then taunted
for his failure, and that by brother dramatists. "Holcroft has done
nothing for literature," says Charles Dibdin; "because, perhaps,
he has done little for morality, less for truth, and nothing for
social order!" Holcroft belongs, indeed, to two centuries; but if
the Administration had hanged him, as they wished to do, in 1794,
when he took his trial for high treason, the author of the _Road to
Ruin_ would not have added his adaptation of "Deaf and Dumb," and the
very first of melodramas, the "Tale of Mystery," to the list of his
deserved successes.
The younger Colman justified the writing of nonsense, by metrically
asking:--
"If we give trash, as some poor critics say,
Why flocks an audience nightly to our play?"
Nevertheless, there were authors who, in the French phrase, had
frequently to "sup at the 'Bagpipes,'" like the minor French
playwright, Dancourt, who was accustomed to failure, but who used
to find solace under the catastrophe by supping joyously with his
friends, at an inn with the above sign. One night, his candid
daughter was present at the first representation of one of Dancourt's
little comedies. At the close of the second scene, the sibilations
commenced, and mademoiselle thereupon turned gaily to her sire, with
the pleasant remark, "Papa, you are going to sup to-night at the
'Bagpipes!'" The Regent Duke of Orleans was less tender towards a
dramatist who bitterly complained to him, not merely that his piece
had been hissed, but that he had been horsewhipped by some of the
audience, who disliked the coarse raillery of his satire. "Well,"
said the Duke, having listened to the complaint, "what is it you
now want?" "Justice," answered the author. "I think," replied his
highness, coolly, "I think you have had that already!"
English managers found authors quite as unreasonable. Early in
the present century, there existed a writer of tragedies, named
Masterton. Failing to get any of them represented, he printed one,
the "Seducer," in 1811;--promising to publish all his rejected
pieces, if his specimen tragedy obtained approval. His object, of
course, was to shame the managers. Like most of the authors of this
century, Mr. Masterton took Otway for his model,--but he did it after
this wise--
"Beware, Olivia, of the wiles of man!--
You've seen one suck an orange in the street;
And when he's feasted, fling the rind away?
So will a man, who has despoiled a woman,--
When all's ta'en from her, cast her in the dirt."
Hayley was angry enough when the public damned his "Eudora," which
act he thought, manifested only the bad taste of the public, seeing
that his play had received the sanction of Lieutenant-General
Burgoyne; but if Hayley knew little of practical triumphs of temper,
and exhibited small discretion in printing his rejected tragedy, he
at least showed that his tragedy was free from such nonsense as we
find in Mr. Masterton's.
The two authors who most strongly contrast with each other as to
their feelings under a disagreeable verdict, were Charles Lamb and
Godwin. The former was present on the night that his farce, "Mr.
H.," was played, and he heartily joined in the shower of hisses with
which it was assailed by the audience. This was in juster taste than
the conduct of Godwin, who sat in the pit, stoically indifferent,
in all appearance, to the indifference of the audience to his
tragedy--"Antonio." As the act-drop descended, without applause or
disapprobation, the author grimly observed that such was exactly the
effect he had laboured to produce. And as the piece proceeded amid
similar demonstrations of contemptuous indifference, "I would not for
the world," said poor Godwin, "have the excitement set in too early."
I question, however, if anything superior to "Antonio" was produced
between 1800 and the first appearance of Edmund Kean. Soon after that
event came Sheil, Maturin, Proctor, and a greater than any of them,
Sheridan Knowles. Sheil wrote his tragedy, "Adelaide," expressly
for Miss O'Neill; everything was sacrificed to one character,--and
"Adelaide" proved a failure. The poem, however, contained promise
of a poet. There was originality, at least there was no servile
imitation, in the style, which was not indeed without inflation, and
thundering phrases and conceits,--but there was, withal, a weakness,
from which, if the writer ever extricated himself, it was only to
fall into greater defect. The story is romantic, and something after
the fashion of the day, in which there was an apotheosis for every
romantic villain. Such a villain is Lunenberg, who, as he remarks
in an early part of the play, had lured Adelaide's unsuspecting
innocence,--
"And with a semblance of religious rites,
Abused thy trust, and plunged thee into shame."
This sorry rascal treats the lady so ill that she is driven to
take poison, and Lunenberg, after fighting her brother Albert, and
heroically running on his sword, dies with sentimental phrases in his
mouth of pure and hallowed happiness to come, and with the prophecy
that "when the sound of heaven shall raise the dead," he and Adelaide
would "awake in one another's arms," which is a very bold image, to
say the least of it.
Adelaide herself is so feeble a personage, in nothing superior to
the heroines of the Leadenhall Street romances of the time, that she
fails to win or to exact sympathy. How very silly a young lady she
is, may be seen by her dying speech to the villain who had deceived
her by a false marriage--
"When I am dead,
As speedily I shall be, let my grave
Be very humble in that mournful spot.
I pray thee, sometimes visit it at eve,
And when you look upon the fading rose
That grows beside a pillar down the aisle,
And watch it drooping in the twilight dews,
Then think of one who bloomed a little while,
E'en as that sickly rose, and bloomed to die."
There is more here of the small sweets of Anna Matilda than of the
pathos and harmony of Otway, or the vigour of Lee.
Whatever promise this first tragedy gave, there was nothing of
realisation in the author's next tragedy, the "Apostate." In this
piece, Hermeya, the Moslem hero, renounces his faith, for love of
the Christian lady Florinda, who is so perplexed between love and
duty, even more than he between love and patriotism, that she at
length finds expression for her condition in the unusually majestic
line--"This is too much for any mortal creature!"--a line which
was echoed by more than one critic. "Adelaide" was feeble; the
"Apostate," in place of being stronger, was only furious. There was
the bombast of Lee, but none of his brilliancy; the hideousness of
his images without anything of their grand picturesqueness. Florinda,
looking on at the execution of Hermeya, exclaims--
"Lo! they wrench his heart away:
They drink his gushing blood!"
--and when a compassionate gentleman requests that the lady may be
removed, she sets forth this series of screaming remarks:--
"You shall not tear me hence; No!--Never! never!
He is my lord!--My husband!--Death!--'twas death!
Death married us together!--Here I will dig
A bridal bed, and we'll lie there for ever!
I will not go!--Ha! You may pluck my heart out,
I will never go!--Help!--Help!--Hermeya!
They drag me to Pescara's cursed bed!
They rend the chains of fire that bind me to thee!
Help!--Help!"
--and so, screaming, she dies. Not thus, despite some raving, was
Belvidera frantic, calling on Jaffier;--and the audience failed to
see a second Otway in Lalor Sheil.
It has hardly fared better with Maturin, who wrote especially for
Edmund Kean. The year 1816 produced this new dramatic writer, and
also a new actress of great promise, in Miss Somerville, who made her
first appearance at Drury Lane, in Maturin's tragedy of "Bertram, or
the Castle of St. Aldobrand," which was played for the first time
on May the 9th. The plot is of the romantic school. Imogine, loving
and loved by an exiled ruffian (Bertram), marries, in his absence,
Bertram's enemy, St. Aldobrand, in order to save her sire from ruin.
Bertram, the outcast, is wrecked near the castle of the wedded pair;
and of course the old lovers encounter each other. From this time,
with some hesitations of decency, all goes wrong. Imogine forgets her
duty to her husband, whom Bertram kills, after seducing his wife.
He, moreover, treats the lady very ungallantly; and Imogine, gaining
nothing by her lapse from righteousness of life, goes mad, and dies;
whereupon, Bertram, finding the world emphatically unpleasant, kills
himself, with considerable self-exultation that he, captain of a
robber band, who had lived with desperate men in desperate ways,--
"Died no felon's death;
A warrior's weapon freed a warrior's soul!"
There is no moral to this piece; but there is some beauty of
language, with a load of bombast, and an old-world amount of fierce
sentiment and grotesque horrors. Among the last may be enumerated,
Bertram sitting with the body of the murdered Aldobrand; and Imogine
sitting with that of her child,--who had been a good angel, of
the best intentions, but never in time to save his mother from
mischief. The German element--in story, style, speech, and minute
stage-directions--prevails throughout the piece, which had a greater
success than it deserved.
If Maturin, in this tragedy, followed the German model rather than
strove to imitate the touching melody of Rowe, and the unaffected but
energetic tenderness of Otway,--he brought back to the stage some
of the grosser features of the dramas of the preceding centuries,
which lowered the standard of woman, and made her not less eager to
be won than dishonest lovers were to woo. The same villainous spirit
marked the epilogue, furnished by the Hon. George Lamb (afterwards
Viscount Melbourne). In it, the villainous Bertram was covered with
the dignity of a hero; and of woman, generally, it was said by the
writer, that--"Vice, on her bosom, lulls remorseful care."
As in the case of Sheil, Maturin's second tragedy, "Manuel," did not
fulfil even the small promise of his first; and, after "Bertram,"
"Manuel" was found insipid,--but more pretentious, roaring, and
bombastic. The interest of the play hangs on one incident. Manuel's
son is reported as slain in battle; but Manuel accuses his kinsman,
and once heir, before that son was born (De Zelos), of having
murdered him. Trial by battle ensues, between Torrismond, son of De
Zelos, and a stranger, who offers himself as champion of Manuel. This
champion (Murad) is vanquished: and he confesses to have been the
murderer, at the instigation of De Zelos; but, having been uneasy in
his mind ever since, he had come to risk and render his own life, by
way of expiation. The instigator stabs himself; Manuel dies; and of
course there is no wedding for Victoria, the daughter of the latter,
and her lover (Torrismond), the son of De Zelos.
A droll, minor incident, in this tragedy, is that in which De Zelos,
when hiring the assassin, and very much desiring to be unknown,
gives him a dagger, with the owner's name upon the haft. Thereby, of
course, he is ultimately known and betrayed; and it was suggested,
that the incident might have authorised the writer to call his
tragedy a comedy, and to give it the name of the "Absent Man." For
violation of nature, common sense, and I may add, sound, this
tragedy of Maturin's equals anything of the kind produced in the
earliest ages of the drama. To Edmund Kean, in the very bloom of
his fame and best of his strength, was raving, like the following,
consigned. De Zelos has just died,--hiding his face,--probably
ashamed of the whole business, whereupon Manuel exclaims,
spasmodically:--
"False!--False!--ye cursed judges!--do ye hide him?
I'll grasp the thunderbolt! rain storms of fire!
There!--There!--I strike! The whizzing bolt hath struck him.
He shrieks! His heart's blood hisses in the flames!
Fiends rend him! lightnings sear him! hell gapes for him!
Oh! I am sick with death! (_Staggering among the bodies._)
Alonzo! Victoria!--I call, and none answer me!
I stagger up and down, an old man, and none to guide me:
Not one! (_Takes Victoria's hand._) Cold! cold! That was an ice-bolt!
I shiver! It grows very dark! Alonzo! Victoria!--Very--very
dark! (_Dies._)"
There is no such nonsense as this in the tragedies of Proctor,
Milman, or Sheridan Knowles. "Mirandola," "Fazio," and "Virginius,"
will never want readers; and "Virginius," especially, will never
want an audience, if it be but fittingly represented. The principal
character in "Virginius" was written expressly for Edmund Kean;
but mere and lucky accident conveyed it to Mr. Macready, who found
therein golden opportunity, and knew how to avail himself of it. To
the former, with a sketch of whose career I close my contributions
towards a History of the English Stage, may be happily applied the
lines of the French poet:--
"Ce glorieux acteur,
Des plus fameux héros fameux imitateur;
Du théâtre Anglais, la splendeur et la gloire,
Mais si mauvais acteur dedans sa propre histoire."
[Illustration: KEAN AS SIR GILES OVERREACH.]