MANAGERIAL WICKEDNESS
Of all the vested rights that mankind is heir to none is more sacred
than the right of an actor to abuse his manager. It is among the
blessed privileges which help to make life cheerful and sunny, for,
when all is said, what would be the joy of existence if we might not
criticise those whom Providence has placed above us. Even a king may
be abused, behind his royal back, and so an humble manager shall not
escape.
There was a manager of Oldfield's day who surely did not escape, and
that was Christopher Rich, Esquire, one of the patentees of Drury Lane
Theatre, and sole director, as a rule, in the affairs of that Thespian
temple. Thespian temple, indeed! What cared Mr. Rich for Thespis or
for art? He looked upon actors as a lot of cattle whose sole mission
in life was to make him rich in pocket as well as in name, and who
might, after the performance of that pious act, betake themselves to
the Evil Gentleman for aught he cared. Several modern managers have
been equally appreciative, but it is a comfort to reflect that a
portion of the fraternity are vast improvements on crusty Christopher,
who was described by a contemporary as "an old snarling lawyer, master
and sovereign; a waspish, ignorant pettifogger in law and poetry; one
who understands poetry no more than algebra; he wou'd sooner have the
Grace of God than do everybody justice."[A]
[Footnote A: Gildon's "Comparison Between the Two Stages."]
This was the measly director in whose company Nance figured for a time,
and for whom she must have had a profound if discreetly-concealed
contempt. Cibber, who seems to have keenly gauged the man, has left us
an account of how Rich[A] treated his actors. "He would laugh with them
over a bottle and bite them in their bargains. He kept them poor, that
they might not be able to rebel; and sometimes merry, that they might
not think of it." How graphic is this picture, with its vision of sly,
crafty Christopher, as he denies the players their well-earned wages and
then hurries them off to a neighbouring tavern, there to get them
hilarious on cheap wine and grudgingly to pay the reckoning. "All their
articles of agreement," continues Colley, "had a clause in them that he
was sure to creep out at, viz., their respective sallaries were to be
paid in such manner and proportion as others of the same company were
paid; which in effect made them all, when he pleas'd, but limited
sharers of loss, and himself sole proprietor of profits; and this loss
or profit they only had such verbal accounts of as he thought proper to
give them. 'Tis true, he would sometimes advance them money (but not
more than he knew at most could be due to them) upon their bonds; upon
which, whenever they were mutinous, he would threaten to sue them. This
was the net we danc'd in for several years. But no wonder we were
dupes," whimsically adds Colley, "while our master was a lawyer."
[Footnote A: Christopher Rich was the father of John Rich, a manager
who excelled in pantomime, and who appreciated the "legitimate" as
little as did his father.]
And a very commonplace, foxy and inartistic lawyer he was, too, with
his fondness for money bags and his willingness to oblige the town
with anything it wanted. To his narrow mind there was no great
difference between a lot of rope-dancers and a company of players, or,
if there should be, the advantage was quite in favour of the former.
We see the same commercial spirit to-day, when the average manager
rents his house for one week to an Irving or a Mansfield, and perhaps
turns it over, the following Monday night, to the tender mercies of
performing dogs and cats. 'Tis all grist that comes to his mill, and
what cares he whether that grist represent "Macbeth" or canine drama?
Cibber was not above looking at the practical side of things, but he
had no patience, nevertheless, with the Philistianism of Rich, who
had that fatal fondness for "paying extraordinary prices to singers,
dancers, and other exotick performers, which were as constantly
deducted out of the sinking sallaries of his actors."[A]
[Footnote A: Operatic singers and dancers, mostly recruited from the
Continent, were fast becoming fashionable, and, as their appearance
on the scene interfered with the profits of the actors, it may be
imagined that the latter held the strangers in much contempt.]
For it seems that Master Rich had not bought his share of the Drury
Lane patent to elevate the stage, but rather to get a fortune
therefrom. "And to say truth, his sense of everything to be shown
there was much upon a level with the taste of the multitude, whose
opinion and whose money weigh'd with him full as much as that of the
best judges. [Colley was evidently thinking of himself as one of these
judges.] His point was to please the majority who could more easilly
comprehend anything they _saw_ than the daintiest things that could be
said to them."
Nay, Christopher actually went so far that he once sought the
services of an elephant to add to the strength of his company, thus
anticipating the realism of our own time, when a few cows, a horse or
two, a lot of chickens and some real straw will cover a multitude
of sins in the construction of a play.[A] Yet, sad to relate, the
elephant was never allowed to lend weight to the drama, as "from the
jealousy which so formidable a rival had rais'd in his dancers, and by
his bricklayer's assuring him that if the walls were to be open'd wide
enough for its entrance it might endanger the fall of the house [the
old theatre in Dorset Garden, which Rich wished to use] he gave up his
project, and with it so hopeful a prospect of making the receipts of
the stage run higher than all the wit and force of the best writers
had ever yet rais'd them to."
[Footnote A: Apropos to the appearance of elephants on the stage, a
capital anecdote is told by Colman in his "Random Records." Johnstone,
a machinist employed at Drury Lane during the latter portion of the
eighteenth century, was celebrated for his superior taste and skill
in the construction of flying chariots, triumphal cars, palanquins,
banners, wooden children to be tossed over battlements, and straw
heroes and heroines to be hurled down a precipice; he was further
famous for wickerwork lions, pasteboard swans, and all sham birds and
beasts appertaining to a theatrical menagerie. He wished on a certain
occasion to spy the nakedness of the enemy's camp, and therefore
contrived to insinuate himself, with a friend, into the two-shilling
gallery, to witness the night rehearsal of a pantomime at Covent
Garden Theatre. Among the attractions of this Christmas foolery a real
elephant was introduced, and in due time the unweildly brute came
clumping down the stage, making a prodigious figure in a procession.
The friend who sat close to Johnstone jogged his elbow, whispering,
"This is a bitter bad job for Drury. Why, the elephant's
_alive_!--he'll carry all before him, and beat you hollow. What d'ye
think on't, eh?" "Think on't," said Johnstone, in a tone of the utmost
contempt, "I should be very sorry if I couldn't make a much better
elephant than that at any time!"]
Yet it was under the auspices of such a man that Oldfield made
several of her most brilliant successes, not forgetting the memorable
appearance as Lady Betty. And all the while, no doubt, Mr. Rich was
thinking how much more sensible an attraction would be an elephant or
a tight-rope walker. But Nance, who had now a firm friend in Cibber,
went merrily on her way, creating new characters in comedy and
astonishing even her most enthusiastic admirers by the imposing air
she could frequently give to a tragic part. In none of them, grave or
gay, was she more charming than as Sylvia, the heroine of Farquhar's
"Recruiting Officer," a play in which she graced man's clothes. Sylvia
is a delightful creature who masquerades as a dashing youth, and
thereby has the privilege of watching her lover, Captain Plume. Of
course the deception is discovered, and all ends happily in the
orthodox fashion [the only bit of orthodoxy about the performance,
by-the-way]. The girl is allowed to marry the Captain and settles
down, we may suppose, to the pleasures of domesticity and woman's
gowns. The comedy was admirably acted throughout, Wilks, Cibber, and
that prince of mimics, Dick Estcourt, being in the cast, and the seal
of popular approval was quickly put upon the production. At present
such a seal should bring hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars into
the pockets of the author, but it is possible that a few paltry pounds
represented the profits of Farquhar.[A]
[Footnote A: The "Recruiting Officer" first saw the light in April
1706.]
In the meantime the spirit of discontent was abroad among the members
of the Drury Lane company. Well it might be when the manager of the
house, as Cibber points out, "had no conception himself of theatrical
merit either in authors or actors, yet his judgment was govern'd by a
saving rule in both. He look'd into his receipts for the value of a
play, and from common fame he judg'd of his actors. But by whatever
rule he was govern'd, while he had prudently reserv'd to himself a
power of not paying them more than their merit could get, he could not
be much deceived by their being over or undervalued. In a word, he had
with great skill inverted the constitution of the stage, and quite
changed the channel of profits arising from it; formerly (when there
was but one company) the proprietors punctually paid the actors their
appointed sallaries, and took to themselves only the clear profits:
But our wiser proprietor took first out of every day's receipts two
shillings in the pound to himself; and left their sallaries to be paid
only as the less or greater deficiencies of acting (according to his
own accounts) would permit. What seem'd most extraordinary in these
measures was, that at the same time he had persuaded us to be
contented with our condition, upon his assuring us that as fast as
money would come in we should all be paid our arrears."
Lawyer Rich lived too soon. How useful would he have been in these
latter days, when irresponsible managers infest the profession and
turn an honest penny by trading on the credulity and unbusinesslike
qualities of many a deluded player. The average manager pays his
debts and is quite as stable and upright in his dealings as one could
desire, but what can be said of the man who take companies "on the
road," after making all sorts of glowing promises, and finally elopes
with the money-box, leaving his actors stranded in a strange city.
Incidents of this kind, which to the victims have more of tragedy than
any play in their _repertoire_, occur almost every day during the
theatrical season, but nothing is done to prevent the ever-increasing
scandal. The erstwhile proprietor of the company returns by Pullman
car to New York, complains loudly about "poor business," a "sunken
fortune," &c., and then prepares to take out another combination. As
for his dupes, who are probably half-starving in some third class
western town, they may walk home on the railroad ties.
Yes, Mr. Rich was evidently intended for a wider sphere and a more
progressive age than those he had to adorn. But despite all his
financial talents some of the best players in Drury Lane were ready to
desert from that house the moment the chance came.
[Illustration: WILLIAM CONGREVE
By Sir GODFREY KNELLER, 1709]
The chance did come, in the season of 1706-7, when Mrs. Oldfield,
Wilks, Mrs. Rogers, and several others, went over to the handsome new
theatre in the Haymarket, and were joined there later by Cibber.
This imposing house was opened in the spring of 1705 by Congreve and
Vanbrugh, and to it had gone Betterton and his associates at Lincoln's
Inn Fields. But noble old Roscius, who had so long cast his welcome
spell upon London theatre-goers, was getting old and feeble, and so
were several of the other members; the spell was well-nigh broken, and
not even a trial of that "new-fangled" style of entertainment, Italian
opera,[A] could make the management a success.
[Footnote A: How Italian opera was despised by certain critics
of Queen Anne's reign has already been shown in "Echoes of the
Playhouse." In his "Essay on the Operas after the Italian Manners,"
Dennis writes (1706): "If that is truly the most Gothic, which is the
most oppos'd to Antick, nothing can be more Gothick than an Opera,
since nothing can be more oppos'd to the ancient Tragedy, than the
modern Tragedy in Musick, because the one is reasonable, the other
ridiculous; the one is artful, the other absurd; the one beneficial,
the other pernicious; in short, the one natural and the other
monstrous."]
Now enters upon the scene the redoubtable Owen Swiney, who plays a
short but brilliant part in the theatrical world, and next, with all
his money gone, enters upon a twenty years' exile on the Continent.
Then he will come home, to be made Keeper of the King's Mews,
and presently our Colley will immortalise him in one of those
pen-portraits which make so many of the Poet Laureate's friends or
foes stand out clear and distinct against the background of the
"Apology." Here is the picture, fresh and beaming as ever:
* * * * *
"If I should farther say, that this person has been well known in
almost every metropolis in Europe; that few private men, with so
little reproach, run through more various turns of fortune; that, on
the wrongside of three-score,[A] he has yet the open spirit of a hale
young fellow of five and twenty; that though he still chuses to speak
what he thinks to his best friends with an undisguised freedom, he
is, notwithstanding, acceptable to many persons of the first rank and
condition; that any one of them (provided he likes them) may now send
him, for their service, to Constantinople at half a day's warning;
that Time has not yet been able to make a visible change in any part
of him but the colour of his hair, from a fierce coal-black to that of
a milder milk-white: When I have taken this liberty with him, methinks
it cannot be taking a much greater if I at once should tell you that
this person was Mr. Owen Swiney."
[Footnote A: Swiney, or MacSwiney, died in 1754, after making Peg
Woffington his legatee]
* * * * *
Swiney was an ardent Irishman who had, for some mysterious reason,
formed a friendship with Rich, and his advice and energy often stood
the manager of Drury Lane in good stead. When, in the summer of 1706,
Vanbrugh proposed that Swiney should lease the Haymarket, Sir John
being anxious to relinquish management, just as Congreve had done some
time before, cunning Christopher gave his consent, curiously enough,
to what was nothing more or less than the setting up of a rival
company of actors. In the first place, he probably looked upon his
players as an encumbrance, since he was in the vein for operatic
entertainments just then, and, furthermore, he pictured himself as
a future monopolist controlling the destinies of two houses. For he
never dreamed, did this haggling, pettifogging lawyer, that Swiney
would swerve from the old time allegiance to him, and he felt so
secure on this point that he privately encouraged the desertion of his
own forces. He made one exception, however, by stipulating that Cibber
should remain at Drury Lane. Colley was too experienced, too versatile
a man to be lost with impunity; he could do everything in a theatre,
from acting to writing good plays and bad poetry, and while the wily
Rich chiefly depended upon his singers and dancers, he said "it would
be necessary to keep some one tolerable actor with him, that might
enable him to set those machines a going."
It so happened that Cibber was one of the men that Swiney needed most,
and, while the new manager of the Haymarket apparently acquiesced in
the exception insisted on by Rich, it was not long before he showed
his hand. It was a better hand than that of his whilom associate, who
had been foolish enough to think that he held the trump card in the
game. The card in question was a little matter of two hundred pounds
owing from Swiney to Rich, and the latter fondly believed that this
loan would bind the debtor to him as with hooks of steel. But we
do not love men the more because they chance to be our creditors;
sometimes, indeed, we love them the less for it, and so these two
hundred pounds did not prevent the Celt from breaking over the traces
of the Englishman. Let Cibber continue the story:
* * * * *
"The first word I heard of this transaction was by a letter from
Swiney, inviting me to make one in the Hay-Market Company. whom he
hop'd I could not but now think the stronger party. But I confess I
was not a little alarm'd at this revolution. For I considered that
I knew of no visible fund to support these actors but their own
industry; that all his recruits from Drury Lane would want new
cloathing; and that the warmest industry would be always labouring
up hill under so necessary an expence, so bad a situation, and so
inconvenient a theatre," &c.
* * * * *
In fine, Master Colley resolved that it would be the course of wisdom
to stay at Drury Lane, where he seems to have enjoyed to an unusual
degree the confidence of the very manager whom afterwards he did
not hesitate to abuse. So when Cibber came up to London from
Gloucestershire, where he had been spending his vacation, he returned
to the fold of his old master.
* * * * *
"But I found our company so thinn'd that it was almost impracticable
to bring any one tolerable play upon the stage. When I ask'd him
where were his actors, and in what manner he intended to proceed? he
reply'd, _Don't you trouble yourself, come along, and I'll shew you_.
"He then led me about all the by-places in the house, and shew'd
me fifty little backdoors, dark closets, and narrow passages in
alterations and contrivances of which kind he had busied his head most
part of the vacation; for he was scarce ever without some notable
joyner or a bricklayer extraordinary, in pay, for twenty years. And
there are so many odd obscure places about a theatre, that his genius
in nook-building was never out of employment, nor could the most
vain-headed author be more deaf to an interruption in reciting his
works, than our wise master was while entertaining me with the
improvements he had made in his invisible architecture; all which,
without thinking any one part of it necessary, tho' I seem'd to
approve, I could not help now and then breaking in upon his delight
with the impertinent question of--_But, Master, where are your
actors_?"
* * * * *
This exhibition of a spirit so commonplace and inartistic proved too
much for Cibber. Perhaps he might have pardoned it had there been
no salary owing him, for your greatest apostle of the drama will
sometimes do a good deal of winking at glaring inconsistencies when
a money _quid pro quo_ looms up in the distance. Here was a case,
however, where the _quid pro quo_ loomed not at all, and the author of
the "Careless Husband" became correspondingly disgusted. I told him
(Rich) I came to serve him at a time when many of his best actors had
deserted him; that he might now have the refusal of me; but I could
not afford to carry the compliment so far as to lessen my income by
it; that I therefore expected either my casual pay to be advanced, or
the payment of my former sallary made certain for as many days as we
had acted the year before. No, he was not willing to alter his former
method; but I might chuse whatever parts I had a mind to act of theirs
who had left him.
* * * * *
"When I found him, as I thought, so insensible, or impregnable, I
look'd gravely in his face, and told him--He knew upon what terms I
was willing to serve him, and took my leave."
* * * * *
Shortly after the interview Cibber joined the Haymarket company, and
one result of his defection was an open quarrel between Rich and
Swiney.
This season of 1706-7 was a memorable one for Oldfield. She then
played for the first time with the chaste Anne Bracegirdle,[A] whom
she quickly cast into the shade. So apparent, indeed, was the shadow
that the elder of the two retired from the stage in the course of
a few months, in the very prime of her beauty. It was a pathetic
incident, and yet the cloud had its silver lining. How often are we
called upon to pity players who linger before the footlights long
after they should have made their exits; instead of departing at the
right moment, leaving behind them charming memories, they die by
inches in full view of the audience.
[Footnote A: "Mrs. Bracegirdle was perhaps a woman of a cold
constitution," says Genest.]
[Illustration: MRS. ANNE BRACEGIRDLE]
Perhaps poverty keeps them at work, but, be that as it may, the public
gives a sigh of relief when the few remaining sparks of genius are at
last snuffed out. When one of them is taken from us, and we read of
the death in the morning paper, we murmur, "Poor old Jones! Well, it's
certainly time he shuffled off." Then we drink our coffee placidly,
turn to some other news, and never think of him again. Many a
once-beloved actor gets this cruel epitaph.
There was nothing superannuated about Bracegirdle when she made her
exit, for the actress still displayed that comeliness which had, until
recently, held the attention of London. "She was of a lovely height,"
says Tony Aston, "with dark brown hair and eyebrows, black, sparkling
eyes, and a fresh, blushy complexion; and, whenever she exerted
herself, had an involuntary flushing in her breast, neck, and face,
having continually a cheerful aspect, and a fine set of even white
teeth; never making an exit, but that she left the audience in
an imitation of her pleasant countenance." When Aston wrote Mrs.
Bracegirdle was still living. "She has been off the stage these 26
years or more, but was alive July 20, 1747, for I saw her in the
Strand, London, then--with the remains of charming Bracegirdle." Poor
old Diana! Time brought her at least one revenge; she had outlived
Nance Oldfield these many years.[A]
[Footnote A: Bracegirdle died in September 1748.]
"Bracey," as Cibber loved to call her, had just left the boards when
George Farquhar's lively comedy, "The Beaux' Stratagem," was produced
at the Haymarket. Perhaps she saw the performance from the audience
side of the house, and was generous enough to admire the sparkle of
Oldfield as Mrs. Sullen; and perhaps, as she was a very charitable
body, Mistress Bracegirdle went to pay a last visit to the brilliant
author of the play. For poor, worn-out Farquhar was dying, nor could
the laughter with which the theatre re-echoed bring much merriment
into that poverty-stricken home which he was so soon to leave for a
world where there would be neither guineas nor debts.
The ill man was game to the last, and his sense of humour never
deserted him. When Oldfield was rehearsing Mrs. Sullen (a woman who
separates from one husband only to have another, Archer, in prospect)
she told Wilks that "she thought the author had dealt too freely with
Mrs. Sullen, in giving her to Archer, without such a proper divorce
as would be a security to her honor." Wilks, who was to play Archer,
spoke of this criticism to Farquhar in the course of a visit to the
dying playwright. "Tell her," gaily replied the latter, "that for her
peace of mind's sake, I'll get a real divorce, marry her myself, and
give her my bond she shall be a real widow in less than a fortnight."
Poor fellow! He was faithful to Mistress Farquhar unto the end, but
who shall say that he had forgotten the old days which began so fairly
at the Mitre Tavern?
[Illustration: MRS. BRACEGIRDLE
As the Sultaness]
Soon there will be another theatrical revolution by which the rival
companies of the Haymarket and Drury Lane will be united under one
management at the latter house, while Owen Swiney will be left free to
devote his attention to Italian opera. This union comes about through
the efforts of Colonel Brett[A], a very _débonnaire_ gentleman from
Gloucestershire, whom Cibber, his warmest admirer, trots out for our
inspection in the perennial "Apology." It appears that Sir Thomas
Skipwith, who has a share in the Drury Lane Patent, becomes so
disgusted with the antics of Rich and his refusal to make any
accounting of the profits of the house, that he presents Brett with
his interest.[B] To the Colonel the gift is a congenial one; he has
passed many a pleasant hour behind the scenes at Drury Lane, and
doubtless thinks that in doing so he writes himself down a very
knowing dog.
[Footnote A: Colonel Brett was the father of Anne Brett, who became a
very dear friend of George I.]
[Footnote B: Sir Thomas afterwards asserted that he only gave his
share to Brett strictly "in trust."]
Probably he is, for Cibber says that though he spent some time at the
Temple, "he so little followed the Law there that his neglect of it
made the Law (like some of his fair and frail admirers) very often
follow him." As he had an uncommon share of social wit and a handsome
person, with a sanguine bloom in his complexion, no wonder they
persuaded him that he might have a better chance of fortune by
throwing such accomplishments into the gayer world than by shutting
them up in a study.
* * * * *
"The first view that fires the head of a young gentleman of this
modish ambition just broke lose 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-bottom'd perriwig which I then wore in my first play
of the 'Fool in Fashion' in the year 1695."
* * * * *
This love affair would suggest what Mr. Gilbert calls:
"A Passion à la Plato
For a bashful young potato."
were we not to remember that in Anne's time handsome full-bottomed
periwigs were regarded with an enthusiasm far too fervid to be called
Platonic. Actors made it a point to have this indispensable headgear
as elaborate as possible, and it is even related that Barton Booth and
Wilks actually paid forty guineas each "on the exorbitant thatching of
their heads."
* * * * *
But let loquacious Colley have his say: "For it is to be noted that
the _Beaux_ of those days were of a quite different cast from the
modern stamp, and had more of the stateliness of the peacock in their
mein than (which now seems to be their highest emulation) the pert air
of a lap-wing. Now, whatever contempt philosophers may have for a fine
perriwig, 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."
* * * * *
Brett expresses such an admiration for this particular full-bottomed
periwig that Cibber is highly flattered, and the two are soon
laughing themselves into the best of terms. Nay, they spend the night
roistering over a bottle or two of wine, and dear, vain Colley, like
many who come after him, falls into the belief that he is a bold,
fast man. With an air of conscious rakishness that is charmingly
ridiculous, he writes: "If it were possible the relation of the happy
indiscretions which passed between us that night could give the tenth
part of the pleasure I then received from them, I could still repeat
them with delight."
Instead of pausing, however, to relate those happy indiscretions,
Cibber prattles on in his colloquial way, telling us that through the
goodly offices of Sir Thomas Skipwith, Brett was introduced to the
divorced wife of the Earl of Macclesfield, "a lady who had enough in
her power to disencumber him of the world and make him every way easy
for life."[A]
[Footnote A: One story of the day made this woman the mother of
Richard Savage.]
"While he was in pursuit of this affair [coyly adds the Apologist]
which no time was to be lost in (for the Lady was to be in town for
but three weeks) I one day found him idling behind the scenes before
the play was begun. Upon sight of him I took the usual freedom he
allow'd me, to rate him roundly for the madness of not improving every
moment in his power in what was of such consequence to him. [Oh, fie,
thou worldly old Colley.] Why are you not (said I) where you know you
only should be? If your design should once get wind in the town, the
ill-will of your enemies or the sincerity of the Lady's friends may
soon blow up your hopes, which in your circumstances of life cannot be
long supported by the bare appearance of a gentleman."
* * * * *
And now Cibber announces that he expects to shock us, although the
story he goes on to disclose is not in any sense improper. Could it be
that according to his eighteenth century reverence for precedence the
crime lay in the rough and tumble way in which, as he ventures to
show, an humble player treated the future husband of a dethroned
Countess. Here, at least, is the awful tale:
* * * * *
"After twenty excuses to clear himself of the neglect I had so warmly
charged him with, he concluded them with telling me he had been out
all the morning upon business and that his linnen was too much soil'd
to be seen in company. Oh, ho! said I, is that all? Come along with
me, we will soon get over that dainty difficulty. Upon which I haul'd
him by the sleeve into my shifting-room, he either staring, laughing,
or hanging back all the way. There, when I had lock'd him in, I began
to strip off my upper cloaths, and bade him do the same; still he
either did not or would not seem to understand me, and continuing his
laugh, cry'd, What! is the puppy mad? No, No, only positive, said I;
for look you, in short, the play is ready to begin, and the parts that
you and I are to act to-day are not of equal consequence; mine of
young Reveller (in 'Greenwich Park'[A]) is but a rake; but whatever
you may be, you are not to appear so; therefore take my shirt and give
me yours; for depend upon't, stay here you shall not, and so go about
your business.
[Footnote A: A play written by Mountford.]
"To conclude, we fairly chang'd linnen, nor could his mother's have
wrap'd him up more fortunately; for in about ten days he marry'd the
Lady."
* * * * *
The gallant Colonel not only married the ex-Countess but became so
flirtatious with at least one other woman that he suggested to Cibber
the most _risqué_ scene in the "Careless Husband." This, then, was the
model gentleman to whom Skipwith made over a share in the Drury Lane
patent, and through whose efforts the rival companies were united in
1708. Swiney, according to the orders of the Lord Chamberlain, was to
conduct the Haymarket for operatic performances, and the players were
all to act at the older house.
For a time life at the theatre went as merrily as a marriage bell. The
public, of both high and low degree, crowded Drury Lane, and every one
was happy excepting sour-faced Rich, who saw with disgust that the
plausible, insinuating Brett was fast overshadowing him in the
management. How wily Christopher schemed and schemed, and how the gay
Colonel was finally compelled to relinquish his portion of the patent
altogether, are details that need not be set forth here. It will
suffice to say, that as a result of all this intriguing, affairs at
Drury Lane assumed an almost chaotic character. Nor was it long before
Owen Swiney entered into treaty with Wilks, Dogget, Mrs. Oldfield and
Cibber, who were to come over to the Haymarket as the heads of a new
company.
In this episode the sunny spirit of Nance was brought prettily into
the foreground. "When Mrs. Oldfield was nominated as a joint sharer in
our new agreement to be made with Swiney [again is the quotation from
Cibber], Dogget, who had no objection to her merit, insisted that our
affairs could never be upon a secure foundation if there was more than
one sex admitted to the management of them." Beastly, unchivalrous,
narrow-minded Dogget. Were you alive to-day, how the New Woman would
champ with rage. "He therefore hop'd that if we offer'd Mrs. Oldfield
a _Carte Blanche_ instead of a share, she would not think herself
slighted." And Oldfield, with the affability which sat so well upon
her, did not think herself in the least slighted. She "receiv'd it
rather as a favour than a disobligation. Her demands therefore were
two hundred pounds a year certain, and a benefit clear of all charges,
which were readily sign'd to."
In the meantime Drury Lane is closed by order of the Lord
Chamberlain,[A] on the ground that in seeking to take from the actors
one-third of their benefit receipts the management have proceeded
illegally. Soon the new forces of Swiney take possession of the
Haymarket, and for a short time London has but one playhouse. Mayhap
Mr. Rich is chagrined, or perhaps he is not ill-pleased, and in any
case he extracts great comfort from a manifesto published in his
behalf by the treasurer of Drury Lane, sweet-named Zachary Baggs. In
this formidable document, which seeks to prove that the seceders are a
lot of ingrates, Oldfield is held up to the public as a sad example of
depravity. Her account with Master Rich is thus itemised:
£ s. d.
To Mrs. Oldfield, at 4 l. a week salary, which
for 14 weeks and one day; she leaving off acting
presently after her benefit (viz.) on the 17th of
March last, 1708, though the benefit was intended
for her whole nine months acting, and she refused
to assist others in their benefits; her salary for
these 14 weeks and one day came to, and she was
paid 56 13 4
In January she required, and was paid ten guineas,
to wear on the stage in some plays, during the whole
season, a mantua petticoat that was given her for
the stage and though she left off three months before
she should, yet she hath not returned any part of
the ten guineas 10 15 0
And she had for wearing in some plays a suit of
boys cloaths on the stage; paid 2 10 9
By a benefit play; paid 62 7 8
[Footnote A: June 1709.]
But what cares laughing Nance for Master Baggs' spiteful paragraph
about the mantua petticoat. Mantua petticoat, forsooth! she has more
artistic things to think about than that, and so pray do not plague
her, gentle reader, with so commonplace an incident. Let her act on
serenely until that glorious night in April 1713, when, back at Drury
Lane, under the triumvirate of Cibber, Wilks and Dogget, she helps to
make sedate Addison's equally sedate "Cato" a triumphant success.