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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/11717-0.txt b/11717-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ce8023a --- /dev/null +++ b/11717-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8356 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11717 *** + +THE PALMY DAYS OF NANCE OLDFIELD + +BY + +EDWARD ROBINS + +WITH PORTRAITS + +1898 + + + + + + +[Illustration: Mrs. Oldfield the celebrated Comedian] + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. FROM TAVERN TO THEATRE + II. AN ENTRE-ACTE + III. A BELLE OF METTLE + IV. MANAGERIAL WICKEDNESS + V. A DEAD HERO + VI. IN TRAGIC PATHS + VII. NANCE AT HOME + VIII. THE MIMIC WORLD + IX. "GRIEF À LA MODE" + X. THE BARTON BOOTHS + XI. THE FADING OF A STAR + APPENDIX + + + + +PORTRAITS + + +Frontispiece: Mrs. Anne Oldfield + +Title-page: Mrs. Oldfield in the Character of Fair Rosamond + +Colley Cibber in the Character of Sir Novelty Fashion + +Robert Wilks + +William Congreve + +Mrs. Anne Bracegirdle + +Mrs. Bracegirdle as the "Sultaness" + +Joseph Addison + +Mrs. Anne Oldfield + +Mr. Mills, Mrs. Porter, Mr. Cibber + +Sir John Vanbrugh + +Sir Richard Steele + +Barton Booth + + + + +THE PALMY DAYS OF NANCE OLDFIELD + + + + +CHAPTER I + +FROM TAVERN TO THEATRE + + +"Out of question, you were born in a merry hour," says Don Pedro to +the blithesome heroine of "Much Ado About Nothing." + +"No, sure, my lord," answers Beatrice. "My mother cried; but then +there was a star danced, and under that was I born." + +Surely a star, possibly Venus, must have danced gaily on a certain +night in the year of grace 1683, when the wife of Captain Oldfield, +gentleman by birth and Royal Guardsman by profession, brought into the +busy, unfeeling world of London a pretty mite of a girl. 'Twas a year +of grace indeed, for the little stranger happened to be none other +than Anne Oldfield, whose elegance of manner, charm of voice and +action and loveliness of face would in time make her the most +delightful comedienne of her day. Perhaps she found no instant +welcome, this diminutive maiden who came smiling into existence laden +with a message from the sunshine; her father was richer in ancestry +than guineas, and the arrival of another daughter may have seemed an +honour hardly worth the bestowal.[A] But Thalia laughed, as well she +might, and even the stern features of Melpomene relaxed a little in +witnessing the birth of one who would prove almost as wondrous in +tragedy, when she so minded, as she was fascinating in the gentler +phases of her art. + +[Footnote A: According to Edmund Bellchambers, Anne Oldfield "would +have possessed a tolerable fortune, had not her father, a captain in +the army, expended it at a very early period."] + +Yet the laughter of Thalia and the unbending of her sister Muse were +hardly likely to make much impression in the Oldfield household, where +money had more admirers than mythology, and so we are not surprised to +learn that, with the death of the gallant captain, this "incomparable +sweet girl," who would ere long reconcile even a supercilious +Frenchman to the English stage, had to seek her living as a +seamstress. How she sewed a bodice or hemmed a petticoat we know not, +nor do we care; it is far more interesting to be told that, though +only in her early teens, the toiler with the needle found her greatest +recreation in reading Beaumont and Fletcher's plays. The modern young +woman, be her station high or low, would take no pleasure in such a +literary occupation, but in the days of Nance Oldfield to con the +pages of Beaumont and Fletcher was considered a privilege rather than +a duty. Then, again, the little seamstress had a soul above threads +and thimbles; her heart was with the players, and we can imagine her +running off some idle afternoon to peep slyly into Drury Lane Theatre, +or perhaps walk over into Lincoln's Inn Fields, where the noble +Betterton and his companions had formed a rival company. The +performance over, she hurries to the Mitre Tavern, in St. James's +Market, and here she is sure of a warm welcome, as is but natural, +since the Mrs. Voss who rules the destinies of the hostelry is Anne's +elder sister[A]. Here the girl loves to spend those rare moments of +leisure, reading aloud the comedies of long ago and dreaming of the +future; and here, too, it is that dashing Captain Farquhar listens in +amazement as she recites the "Scornful Lady." + +[Footnote A: According to one authority Mrs. Voss was Anne's aunt. We +adhere, however, to Dr. Doran's account of the relationship.] + +George Farquhar--how his name conjures up a vision of all that +is brilliant, rakish, and bibulous in the expiring days of the +seventeenth century! It is easy to picture him, as he stands near +the congenial bar of the tavern, entranced by the liquid tones and +marvellous expression of Nance's youthful voice. He has a whimsical, +good-humoured face, perhaps showing the rubicund effects of steady +drinking (as whose features did not in those halcyon times of merry +nights and tired mornings?), and a general air of loving the world and +its pleasures, despite a secret suspicion that a hard-hearted bailiff +may be lying in wait around the corner. His flowing wig may seem a +trifle old, the embroidery on his once resplendent vest look sadly +tarnished, and the cloth of his skirted coat exhibit the unmistakable +symptoms of age, but, for all that, Captain Farquhar stands forth an +honourable, high-spirited gentleman. And gentleman George Farquhar +is both by birth and bearing. Was he not the son of genteel parents +living in the North of Ireland, and did he not receive a polite +education at the University in Dublin? So polite, indeed, has his +training been that he is already the author of that wonderful "Love +and a Bottle," a comedy wherein he amusingly holds the mirror up to +English vices, including his own. And, speaking of vices, he can now +look back to those salad days when he wrote verses of unimpeachable +morality, setting forth, among other sentiments, that-- + + "The pliant Soul of erring Youth + Is, like soft Wax, or moisten'd Clay, + Apt to receive all heav'nly Truth, + Or yield to Tyrant Ill the Sway. + Shun Evil in your early Years, + And Manhood may to Virtue rise; + But he who, in his Youth, appears + A Fool, in Age will ne'er be wise." + +Poor fellow! He never will be wise in the material sense; he will trip +gracefully through life with more brains and bonhomie than worldly +discretion, yet eclipsing many steadier companions by writing the +"Recruiting Officer" and other sparkling plays, not forgetting "The +Inconstant," which will last even unto the end of the nineteenth +century. At present--and 'tis the present rather than the past or +future that most concerns the captain--he holds a commission in the +army, which he is foolish enough to relinquish later on, and he has +come to the very sensible conclusion that he is far more at home in +the writing of comedies than the acting therein. For he has been +on the stage, and precipitately retired therefrom after accidently +wounding a fellow performer[A]. In the course of two or three years +Farquhar will make a desperate attempt to be mercenary by marrying a +girl whom he supposes to be wealthy; he will find out his mistake, and +then, like the thoroughbred that he is, will go on cherishing her as +though she had brought him a ton of rent-rolls. When he is dead and +gone, Chetwood, the veteran prompter of Drury Lane, will tell +us, quaintly enough, how "it was affirm'd, by some of his near +Acquaintance, his unfortunate Marriage shortened his Days; for his +Wife (by whom he had two Daughters), through the Reputation of a great +Fortune, trick'd him into Matrimony. This was chiefly the Fault of her +Love, which was so violent that she was resolved to use all Arts to +gain him. Tho' some Husbands, in such a Case, would have proved _mere +Husbands_, yet he was so much charm'd with her Love and Understanding, +that he liv'd very happy with her. Therefore when I say an unfortunate +Marriage, with other Circumstances, conducted to the shortening of his +Days; I only mean that his Fortune, being too slender to support a +Family, led him into a great many Cares and Inconveniences." + +[Footnote A: Farquhar was playing in "The Indian Emperor" being cast +for Guyomar, a character whose pleasant duty it is to kill Vasquez, +the Spanish general. This particular Guyomar forgot to change his +sword for a theatre foil, and in the subsequent encounter gave Vasquez +too realistic a punishment]. + +No one would have appreciated the unconscious humour of Chetwood's +assertion about "some husbands" more than Farquhar himself. One +trembles to think, by the way what a "mere husband" must have been in +the reigns of William or Anne. + +In the meantime we are almost forgetting young Mistress Oldfield, who +is still reading the "Scornful Lady," and putting new life and grace +into lines which nowadays seem a bit academic and musty. The captain +has not forgotten her, however; on the contrary, he is so charmed with +what he hears that he makes some flimsy excuse to get into that room +behind the bar whence the silvery voice proceeds. There he first meets +Nance, surrounded by what audience we know not, and is struck dumb at +the lovely figure standing out in bashful relief, as it were, against +a background of wine bottles and ale tankards. There is an awkward +pause, no doubt, and if the girl of fifteen comes to a sudden stop in +her recital, Farquhar is no less embarrassed on his part. + +The handsome, rosy face of a strapping tavern wench would not have +startled him, but he was not gazing upon a bouncing serving maid or +the hoydenish daughter of a prosperous innkeeper. He beheld a creature +in all the gentle bloom of highbred beauty--tall, well-formed, and +radiating a sort of natural elegance, with a fine-shaped, expressive +face, to which great speaking eyes and a mouth half pensive, half +smiling, lent an air of rare distinction. These were the eyes which +in after years Anne would half close in a roguish way, as when, for +instance, she meditated a brilliant stroke as Lady Betty Modish, and +then, opening them defiantly, would make them glisten with the spirit +of twinkling comedy. These were the eyes, too, which would shine forth +such unutterable love when she played Cleopatra that one might well +pardon the peccadilloes of poor Antony. But as yet there was no +thought of drooping eyelids or amorous glances; all was natural, and +nothing more so than the coyness of Nance upon seeing the author of +"Love and a Bottle." + +Captain Farquhar had never before beheld this seamstress from King +Street, Westminster, but she must have been familiar with the handsome +figure of one who had drunk many a brimming glass at the Mitre Tavern. +Thus, when he made bold to praise her elocution, she was not offended, +and, although she ignored his request to continue the "Scornful Lady," +Anne proved sufficiently mistress of the interruption to astonish the +intruder by her "discourse and sprightly wit." That innate breeding, +of which no amount of poverty could deprive her, came to the surface, +to show that a woman of quality is none the worse for a surprise. +Farquhar, bowing low with a grace that made his faded clothes seem the +pink of fashion, poured forth a torrent of flowery compliments, which +became all the stronger when he heard that the girl knew Beaumont and +Fletcher nearly by heart. She must have blushed, looking prettier than +ever, as the visitor went on; and how that young heart did leap as +he predicted for her a glorious future on the stage! The stage! the +_Ultima Thule_ of all her hopes! The very idea of acting filled her +head with a thousand bewildering fancies, and, as she told Chetwood in +after years, "I longed to be at it, and only wanted a little decent +intreaties." + +The decent intreaties were forthcoming. Nance's mother, who evidently +rejoiced in a prophetic spirit not given to all parents, strongly +agreed with Farquhar's opinion that the young lady should try a +theatrical career, and the upshot of the whole episode was that +Captain Vanbrugh took an interest in the newly-found jewel. This was a +high honour. Vanbrugh had not yet made for himself a reputation as an +architect by building Blenheim Castle for the Marlboroughs, nor had +he changed his title of Captain for Sir John; but he was a great +man, nevertheless, a successful dramatist and a boon companion of +Christopher Rich, manager of Drury Lane. When the enthusiastic +Farquhar sounded the praises of Anne Oldfield the future Sir John +quickly repaired to the sign of the Mitre, with which, no doubt, he +was already familiar, and met the young enchantress of that historic +little room behind the bar. The arrival of this second and more +distinguished captain was evidently the signal for a family council. +We can see them all--Nance, glowing with excitement, her Brahmin-like, +aristocratic beauty heightened by a dash of natural colour, quite +different from the rouge she might use later; Mrs. Voss, sleepy, +comfortable, and well pleased; and Mrs. Oldfield, full of importance +and maternal solicitude. Vanbrugh, with his good-humoured smile and +military bearing, talks in a fatherly way to the daughter, is deeply +impressed with her many attractions, and is not sorry to learn that +her ambition is all for comedy. He promises to use his good offices +with Mr. Rich to have her enrolled as a member of the Drury Lane +company, keeps his word, too--something for a gentleman to do in the +year 1699--and soon has the satisfaction of seeing his new protégée +hobnobbing with Mrs. Verbruggen, Wilks, Cibber, and other players of +the house, while drawing fifteen shillings a week for the privilege. + +To hobnob, receive a few shillings, and do next to nothing on the +stage does not seem a glorious beginning for our heroine, but think +of the inestimable luxury of brushing up against Colley Cibber. This +remarkable man, who would be in turn actor, manager, playwright, and a +pretty bad Poet Laureate before death would put an extinguisher on +his prolific muses, had at first no exalted opinion of the newcomer's +powers. + +"In the year 1699," he writes in that immortal biography of his,[A] +"Mrs. Oldfield was first taken into the house, where she remain'd +about a twelvemonth, almost a mute and unheeded, 'till Sir John +Vanbrugh, who first recommended her, gave her the part of Alinda in +the 'Pilgrim' revis'd. This gentle character happily became that want +of confidence which is inseparable from young beginners, who, without +it, seldom arrive to any excellence. Notwithstanding, I own I was then +so far deceiv'd in my opinion of her, that I thought she had little +more in her person that appeared necessary to the forming a good +actress; for she set out with so extraordinary a diffidence, that it +kept her too despondingly down to a formal, plain, (not to say)flat +manner of speaking." + +[Footnote A: "An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber."] + +How strange it seems, as we peer back behind the scenes of history, +to think of a theatrical _débutante_ rejoicing in an extraordinary +diffidence. "Rather a cynical remark, isn't it?" the reader may ask. +Well, perhaps it is, but these are piping times of advertising, when +even genius has been known to employ a press agent. + +Nance Oldfield may have been almost mute for a twelvemonth, yet more +than a few feminine novices, Anno Domino 1898, would never be +content to remain silent; not only must they make a noise behind the +footlights, but they feel it incumbent to be heard in the newspapers +as well. Any dramatic editor could tell a weary tale of the +importunities of a progressive young lady who wants to enlighten +an aching public at least six times a week as to the number of her +dresses, the colour of her hair, and the attention of her admirers. +There is a blessed consolation in all this: the female with the +trousseau, the champagned locks and the notoriety lasts no longer +than the butterfly, and her place is soon taken by the girl who never +bothers about the paragraphs, because she is sure to get them. + +To return to the more congenial subject of Oldfield, it is strange +that so shrewd a Thespian as Cibber (who seems to have been clever in +all things but poetry) was so long in coming to a real appreciation of +her genius. He is manly enough to confess that not even the silvery +tone of that honeyed voice could, "'till after some time incline my +ear to any hope in her favour." "But public approbation," he tells us, +"is the warm weather of a theatrical plant, which will soon bring it +forward to whatever perfection nature has design'd it. However, Mrs. +Oldfield (perhaps for want of fresh parts) seem'd to come but slowly +forward 'till the year 1703." So slowly had she come forward indeed, +that in 1702, Gildon, a now forgotten critic and dramatist, included +her among the "meer Rubbish that ought to be swept off the stage with +the Filth and Dust."[A] Time has avenged the actress for this slight; +who, excepting the student of theatrical history, remembers Gildon? + +[Footnote A: From the "Comparison Between the Two Stages."] + +What is more to the purpose, Nance was able to avenge herself in the +flesh, only a few months after these contemptuous lines had been +penned. It happened at Bath, in the summer of 1703, and the story of +her triumph, brief as it is, sounds quaint and pretty, as it comes +down to us laden with a thousand suggestions of fashionable life in +the reign of Queen Anne--a life made up of gossip and cards, drinking, +gaming, patches and powder, fine clothes, full perriwigs and empty +heads. What a picturesque lot of people there must have been at the +great English spa that season, all anxious to get a glimpse of her +plump majesty, who was staying there, and all willing enough to do +anything except to test the waters or the baths from which the place +first acquired fame. They were all there, the pretty maids and +wrinkled matrons, the young rakes of twenty, ready for a frolic, and +the old rakes of thirty too weary to do much more than go to the +theatre and cry out, "Damme, this is a damn'd play." Then the +children, who were always in the way, and the aged fathers of families +who liked to swear at the dandified airs and newly imported French +manners of their sons. And such sons as some of them were too--smart +fellows, of whom the beau described in "The Careless Husband," may be +taken as an example: one "that's just come to a small estate, and a +great perriwig--he that sings himself among the women--he won't speak +to a gentleman when a lord's in company. You always see him with a +cane dangling at his button, his breast open, no gloves, one eye +tuck'd under his hat, and a toothpick." + +What of the belles of the Bath? They seem to have been much after the +fashion of their modern sisters, with their harmless little vanities, +their love of expensive finery, and their pretty eyes ever watching +for the main chance, or a chance man. Odsbodkins! but the world has +changed very little, for even then we hear of dashing specimens of the +New Woman, in the persons of ladies who affected men's hats, feathers, +coats, and perriwigs, to such an extent that our dear friend Addison +will gently rebuke them during the reign of the _Spectator_. He +doubts if this masculinity will "smite more effectually their male +beholders," for how would the sweet creatures themselves be affected +"should they meet a man on horseback, in his breeches and jack-boots, +and at the same time dressed up in a commode[A] and a night raile?" + +[Footnote A: A cumbersome head-dress made of lace or muslin.] + +How charming it would have been to watch the whole gay crew, just +as Addison and Steele must have done, and to feel, like these +two delightful philosophers, that you were a little above the +surroundings. Poor Dick Steele may not always have been above those +surroundings; we can fancy him taking things comfortably in some +tippling-house, red-faced, happy, and winey, but even the most +puritanical of us will forgive him. Read, by the way, what he says of +the Spa's morals[A]--"I found a sober, modest man was always looked +upon by both sexes as a precise, unfashioned fellow of no life or +spirit. It was ordinary for a man who had been drunk in good company, +or.... to speak of it next day before women for whom he had the +greatest respect. He was reproved, perhaps, with a blow of the fan, +or an 'Oh, fy!' but the angry lady still preserved an apparent +approbation in her countenance. He was called a strange, wicked +fellow, a sad wretch; he shrugs his shoulders, swears, receives +another blow, swears again he did not know he swore, and all was well. +You might often see men game in the presence of women, and throw at +once for more than they were worth, to recommend themselves as men of +spirit. I found by long experience that the loosest principles and +most abandoned behaviour carried all before them in pretentions to +women of fortune." + +[Footnote A: _Spectator_, No. 154. Steele is writing as Simon +Honeycomb.] + +Into this merry throng came Anne Oldfield during that +never-to-be-forgotten summer--not, however, as an equal, but as an +humble player of the troupe from Drury Lane. They had moved down from +London, these happy-go-lucky Bohemians, as they were wont to do each +season, among them being the ubiquitous Cibber, the gentlemanly Wilks, +and that very talented vagabond, George Powell. Powell it was who +liked his brandy not wisely but too well, and who made such passionate +love on the stage that Sir John Vanbrugh used to wax nervous for the +fate of the actresses. One great artiste was missing, however. Mrs. +Verbruggen was ill in London, and that shining exponent of light +comedy, who Cibber said was mistress of more variety of humour than +he ever knew in any one actress, would never more tread those boards +which were dearer to her than life.[A] Before she disappears for ever +from these "Palmy Days" let us read a page or two about her from the +graphic pictures in that famous "Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley +Cibber":-- + + * * * * * + +"As she was naturally a pleasant mimick, she had the skill to make +that talent useful on the stage, a talent which may be surprising in +a conversation, and yet be lost when brought to the theatre.... But +where the elocution is round, distinct, voluble, and various, as Mrs. +Montfort's was, the mimick there is a great assistant to the actor." + +[Footnote A: A brief memoir of Mrs. Verbruggen and her first husband, +handsome Will Mountford, will be found in "Echoes of the Playhouse."] + + * * * * * + +Which reminds one that more than a baker's dozen of modern comedians, +so called, are nothing less than mimics. However, this is digressing, +and so we continue: + +"Nothing, tho' ever so barren, if within the bounds of nature, could +be flat in her hands. She gave many heightening touches to characters +but coldly written, and often made an author vain of his work that in +itself had but little merit. She was so fond of humour, in what low +part soever to be found, that she would make no scruple of defacing +her fair form to come heartily into it;[A] for when she was eminent +in several desirable characters of wit and humour in higher life, she +would be in as much fancy when descending into the antiquated Abigail +of Fletcher ('Scornful Lady') as when triumphing in all the airs and +vain graces of a fine lady, a merit that few actresses care for. In +a play of D'Urfey's, now forgotten, called the 'Western Lass,' which +part she acted, she transformed her whole being, body, shape, voice, +language, look, and features, into almost another animal, with a +strong Devonshire dialect, a broad, laughing voice, a poking head, +round shoulders, an unconceiving eye, and the most bediz'ning, dowdy +dress that ever cover'd the untrain'd limbs of a Joan Trot. To have +seen her here you would have thought it impossible the same creature +could ever have been recover'd to what was as easy to her, the gay, +the lively, and the desirable. Nor was her humour limited to her sex; +for, while her shape permitted, she was a more adroit pretty fellow +than is usually seen upon the stage. Her easy air, action, mien, and +gesture quite chang'd, from the quoif to the cock'd hat and cavalier +in fashion. People were so fond of seeing her a man, that when the +part of Bays in the 'Rehearsal' had for some time lain dormant, she +was desired to take it up, which I have seen her act with all the true +coxcombly spirit and humour that the sufficiency of the character +required." + +[Footnote A: Davies, in his "Life of Garrick," says of Peg Woffington +that "in Mrs. Day, in the 'Committee,' she made no scruple to disguise +her beautiful countenance by drawing on it the lines of deformity and +the wrinkles of old age, and to put on the tawdry habilaments and +vulgar manners of an old hypocritical city vixen."] + +Let us cry peace to her manes and then wander back to Mistress +Oldfield, whom we have a very ungallant way of leaving from time to +time. + +Well, Verbruggen having been taken out of the dramatic lists "most of +her parts," as Colley chronicles, "were, of course, to be disposed of, +yet so earnest was the female scramble for them, that only one of them +fell to the share of Mrs. Oldfield, that of Leonora in 'Sir Courtly +Nice'; a character of good plain sense, but not over elegantly +written." + +A "female scramble" it must have been with a vengeance, as any one who +knows aught of theatrical ambition will easily understand. The only +really distinguished actress of the Drury Lane coterie _hors de +combat_, and a bevy of feminine vultures of no particular pretension, +anxiously waiting to dispose of her histrionic remains! Think of it, +ye managers who have to subdue the passions and limit the extravagant +hopes of your players, and pity poor, unfortunate Mr. Rich. Do you +wonder that Nance only contrived to get the plain-spoken Leonora? The +wonder of it is that she obtained any rôle whatsoever. + +Let Cibber continue the story, while he frankly confesses that even he +could form a false estimate of a colleague: + + * * * * * + +"It was in this part Mrs. Oldfield surpris'd me into an opinion of her +having all the innate powers of a good actress, though they were yet +but in the bloom of what they promis'd. Before she had acted this part +I had so cold an expectation from her abilities, that she could scarce +prevail with me to rehearse with her the scenes she was chiefly +concerned in with Sir Courtly, which I then acted. However, we +ran them over with a mutual inadvertency of one another. I seem'd +careless, as concluding that any assistance I could give her would be +to little or no purpose; and she mutter'd out her words in a sort of +mifty manner at my low opinion of her. But when the play came to be +acted, she had just occasion to triumph over the error of my judgment, +by the (almost) amazement that her unexpected performance awak'd me +to; so forward and sudden a step into nature I had never seen; and +what made her performance more valuable was that I knew it all +proceeded from her own understanding, untaught and unassisted by any +one more experienced actor." + + * * * * * + +In the original text, Cibber, in pursuance of that old-fashioned +method of capitalising every third or fourth word without any +particular rhyme or reason, has spelled occasion with a big O. Well +he might, for it was, perhaps, the most important occasion in all the +eventful life of Oldfield. She would win many a more popular triumph +in days to come, but what were all of them compared to the honour of +having compelled the writer to admit that he had blundered. + +"Though this part of Leonora in itself was of so little value, that +when she got more into esteem it was one of the several she gave away +to inferior actresses; yet it was the first (as I have observed) that +corrected my judgment of her, and confirmed me in a strong belief +that she could not fail in very little time of being what she was +afterwards allow'd to be, the foremost ornament of our Theatre." + +It takes but slight exercise of fancy to see inside the stuffy little +theatre of Bath, on that memorable summer afternoon, when "Sir Courtly +Nice"[A] is produced, with Cibber in the foppish title-rôle and the +fair unknown as Leonora, "Belguard's sister, in love with Farewell." +Her fat, peaceful, and phlegmatic Majesty, Anne Stuart, is in the +royal box, perhaps (although she is far from being a playgoer), and +with her retinue may be seen her dearest of friends, Sarah Churchill, +now Duchess of Marlborough, and the most brilliant political Amazon of +her time. How appropriate, by-the-way, that they should be together at +the comedy. The whole intimacy of the two, gentle Sovereign and fiery +subject, is nothing more or less than a curious play, wherein Anne +takes the rôle of Queen (unwillingly enough, poor thing, for she was +born to be bourgeoise) and the Duchess assumes the leading part. +Unfortunate "Mrs. Morley"![B] You have a weary time of it, trying to +act up to royalty when you would be so much happier as a middle-class +housewife, and, perhaps, you have never been more bored than you are +to-day in viewing "Sir Courtly Nice." Nor can the performance be as +delightful as it might otherwise prove to her of Marlborough; 'tis but +a few months since her son, the Marquis of Blandford, had ended in +small-pox a career which promised to carry on the greatness of his +house. + +[Footnote A: "Sir Courtly Nice; or, It Cannot be," was from the pen of +John Crown. In dedicating it to the Duke of Ormond, as can be seen in +the original publication of the piece ("London, Printed by H.H. Jun. +for R. Bently, in Russell street, Covent Garden, and Jos. Hindmarsh, +at the Golden-Ball over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill, +MDCLXXXV"). The author says: "This comedy was Written by the Sacred +Command of our late Most Excellent King, of ever blessed and beloved +Memory (Charles II.). I had the great good fortune to please Him often +at his Court in my Masque, on the Stage in Tragedies and Comedies, and +so to advance myself in His good opinion; an Honour may render a +wiser Man than I vain; for I believe he had more equals in extent of +Dominion than of Understanding. The greatest pleasure he had from the +Stage was in Comedy, and he often Commanded me to Write it, and lately +gave me a Spanish Play called 'No' Puedeser Or, It Cannot Be' out of +which I took part o' the Name and design o' this."] + +[Footnote B: It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that in the +private correspondence between Anne and the Duchess of Marlborough, +the former signed herself "Mrs. Morley," while her friend masqueraded +as "Mrs. Freeman."] + +The comedy is about to begin as a common-looking person makes his +appearance in the box. He is a dull, heavy fellow, who suggests +nothing more strongly than a fondness for brown October ale and a good +dinner into the bargain. Anne turns towards him with as affectionate +a glance as she thinks it seeming to bestow in public. Is he not her +husband, George of Denmark, and the father of all those children whom +she never has succeeded in rearing to man's, or woman's, estate? He is +a faithful consort, too, which is saying not a little in the days when +Royal constancy, on the male side, is the rarest of jewels. George +has vices, to be sure, but they belong to the stomach rather than the +heart--that obese heart which, such as it is, the good Queen can call +her own. + +"Hath your Royal Highness ever seen this Cibber act?" asked the +Duchess, by way of making conversation. She never stands on ceremony +with soft-pated George, and does not wait to speak until she is spoken +to. + +"Cibber--Cibber--who be Cibber?" queries the Prince, a beery look in +his eye, a foreign accent on his tongue. + +"He's the son of the sculptor, Caius Gabriel Cibber, your Highness." + +"I do not know--I do not know," mutters George drowsily. Then he falls +asleep in the box, and snores so deeply that Manager Rich, who has +been in the front of the house, pokes his inquisitive face into the +poorly-lighted auditorium, and quickly pokes it back again. + +But hush! Wake up, Prince, and look at the stage. The play has begun, +and some member of the company, we know not who, has recited the +archaic prologue, which asks: + + "What are the Charmes, by which these happy Isles + Hence gain'd Heaven's brightest and eternal smiles? + What Nation upon Earth besides our own + But by a loss like ours had been undone? + Ten Ages scarce such Royal worths display + As England lost, and found in one strange Day. + One hour in sorrow and confusion hurld, + And yet the next the envy of the World." + +[Illustration: COLLEY CIBBER + +In the character of "Sir Novelty Fashion, newly created Lord +Foppington," in Vanbrugh's play of "The Relapse, or, Virtue in +Danger." + +_From the Painting by_ J. GRISONI, _the property of the Garrick Club_] + +The King is dead! Long live the Queen! The prologue was written in +honour of his most Catholic Majesty James II. and his consort, Marie +Beatrice of Modena, but the opening lines are admirably adapted to +flatter Anne, and so they are retained, even though what follows +happens to be new.[A] + +[Footnote A: The remainder of the original prologue, had it been +recited, would have raised a storm.] + +But what care we for the prologue when the first scene is on and +Violante and Leonora are confessing their respective love affairs, as +women always do--on the stage. Leonora has a dragon of a brother who +would compel her to marry that pink of empty propriety, Sir Courtly, +but she rebels against the admirer selected for her, as all well-bred +young women should in plays, and sets her heart upon another. In +consequence there is trouble of the dear old romantic kind. + +"I never stir out, but as they say the Devil does, with chains and +torments," Leonora tells Violante. "She that is my Hell at home is so +abroad." + +"Vio. A New Woman? + +"LEO. No, an old Woman, or rather an old Devil; nay, worse than an old +Devil, an old Maid. + +"Vio. Oh, there's no Fiend so Envious. + +"LEO. Right; she will no more let young People sin, than the Devil +will let 'em be sav'd, out of envy to their happiness. + +"Vio. Who is she? + +"LEO. One of my own blood, an Aunt. + +"Vio. I know her. She of thy blood? She has not a drop of it these +twenty years; the Devil of envy sucked it all out, and let verjuice in +the roome." + +These lines are decidedly unfeminine and coarse, as viewed from a +nineteenth century standard, and there is nothing in them to recommend +the two girls to the particular favour of the audience. Yet, in +the case of Leonora, they are given with such rare spirit, and the +speaker, with her almost sensuous charm and the melody of that +marvellous voice, is so fascinating, that the house is suddenly caught +in some entrancing spell. Oldfield has burst upon it in all the sudden +glory of a newly unfolded flower, and murmurs of admiration and +surprise are heard on every side. More than this, Queen Anne, whose +thoughts may have been far away with the dead Duke of Gloucester, +betrays a sudden interest in the performance, and thus sets the +fashion for all those around her, excepting his most sleepy Royal +Highness, the Prince of Denmark. He dozes on; twenty angels from +heaven would not disturb him. + +As the play proceeds, the curiosity centres around the new Leonora, +so that even the scene where Sir Courtly is found making the most +elaborate of toilets, with the assistance of a bevy of vocalists, does +not exert the attraction to be found in the presence of Oldfield. The +episode is all very funny, of course, and there is an appreciative +titter when the fop defines the characteristics of a gentleman: + +"Complaisance, fine hands, a mouth well furnished-- + +"SERVANT. With fine language? + +"SIR COURTLY. Fine teeth, you sot; fine language belongs to pedants +and poor fellows that live by their wits. Men of quality are above +wit. 'Tis true, for our diversion, sometimes we write, but we ne'er +regard wit. I write, but I never write any wit. + +"SERVANT. How then, sir? + +"SIR COURTLY. I write like a gentleman, soft and easy." + +It is only a titter, however, that Cibber can produce this afternoon, +or evening,[A] nor does the audience take the usual relish in that +touch-and-go rubbish of a duet sung by a supposed Indian and his love, +a duet in which the former declares: + + "My other Females all Yellow, fair or Black, + To thy Charmes shall prostrate fall, + As every kind of elephant does + To the white Elephant Buitenacke. + And thou alone shall have from me + Jimminy, Gomminy, whee, whee, whee, + The Gomminy, Jimminy, whee." + +To which the lovely maiden answers: + + "The great Jaw-waw that rules our Land, + And pearly Indian sea + Has not so absolute Command + As thou hast over me, + With a Jimminy, Gomminy, Gomminy, + Jimminy, Jimminy, Gomminy, whee." + +[Footnote A: Theatrical performances in this reign generally began at +5 p.m.] + +When the play is over Nance can take a new part, that of a feminine +conqueror. She has overshadowed Colley Cibber, who is more dazed than +chagrined at the _dénouement_, and she has proved more potent for the +public amusement than all the beauties of "Jimminy, Gomminy," with its +elephants, its jaw-waw, and its pearly Indian Sea. As she sits in the +green-room, smiling in girlish triumph while she looks around at the +beaux and players who crowd about her, anxious to worship the rising +star, her eloquent glance falls on George Farquhar. There is a tear +in his eye, but a radiant expression about the face. What does the +Oldfield's success mean to the Captain? Perhaps Anne knows, as she +throws him a tender recognition; perhaps she thinks of that song in +"Sir Courtly Nice" which runs: + + "Oh, be kind, my dear, be kind, + Whilst our Loves and we are Young; + We shall find, we shall find, + Time will change the face or mind, + Youth will not continue long. + Oh, be kind, my dear, be kind." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AN ENTRE-ACTE + + +While Anne Oldfield is resting from her first triumph and preparing +for another, let us glance for a moment at the theatrical conditions +which surround her. Curious, perplexing conditions they are, marking +as they do a transition between the brilliant but generally filthy +period of the Restoration--a period in which some of the worst and +some of the best of plays saw the light--and the time when the +punctilio and artificial decency of the age will cast over the stage +the cold light of formality and restraint. The nation is but slowly +recovering from the licentiousness which characterised the merry reign +of Charles II., that witty, sceptical sovereign, who never believed in +the honesty of man nor the virtue of frail woman. The playwrights are +recovering too, yet, if anything, more tardily than the people; for +when a nasty cynicism, like that pervading the old comedies, is once +boldly cultivated, many a long day must elapse ere it can be replaced +by a cleaner, healthier spirit. + +Charles has surely had much to answer for at the bar of public opinion +(a bar for which he evidently felt a profound contempt), and the evil +influence which he and his Court exerted on the drama supplies one of +the greatest blots on his moral 'scutcheon. Augustus William Schlegel, +that foreigner who studied the literature of the English stage as few +Britons have ever done, well pointed out that while the Puritans had +brought Republican principles and religious zeal into public odium, +this light-hearted monarch seemed expressly born to dispel all respect +for the kingly dignity. "England was inundated with the foreign +follies and vices in his train. The Court set the fashion of the most +undisguised immorality, and this example was the more extensively +contagious, as people imagined that they showed their zeal for the +new order of things by an extravagant way of thinking and living. +The fanaticism of the Republicans had been accompanied with true +strictness of manners, and hence nothing appeared more convenient than +to obtain the character of Royalists by the extravagant inclination +for all lawful and unlawful pleasures. + +"The age of Louis XIV. was nowhere imitated with greater depravity. +The prevailing gallantry at the Court of France was not without +reserve and tenderness of feeling; they sinned, if I may so speak, +with some degree of dignity, and no man ventured to attack what was +honourable, though his own actions might not exactly coincide with it. +The English played a part which was altogether unnatural to them; they +gave themselves heavily up to levity; they everywhere confounded +the coarsest licentiousness with free mental vivacity, and did not +perceive that the sort of grace which is still compatible with +depravity, disappears with the last veil which it throws off." + +As Schlegel goes on to say, we can easily imagine into what direction +the tastes of the English people drifted under such auspices. "They +possessed no real knowledge of the fine arts, and these were merely +favoured like other foreign fashions and inventions of luxury. They +neither felt a true want of poetry, nor had any relish for it; they +merely wished to be entertained in a brilliant and light manner. The +theatre, which in its former simplicity had attracted the spectators +solely by the excellence of the dramatic works and the actors, was now +furnished out with all the appendages with which we are at this +day familiar; but what is gained in external decoration is lost in +internal worth." + +In other words, the theatrical life and literature of the Restoration +was morally rotten to the core. How that rottenness has been giving +way, during the childhood of Nance Oldfield, to what may be styled a +comparative decency, need not be described here. Suffice it to explain +that such a change is taking place, and let us accordingly sing, +rejoice and give thanks for small mercies. Thalia has ceased to be a +wanton; she is fast becoming quite a respectable young woman, and as +to Melpomene--well, that severe Muse is actually waxing religious. + +Religious? Yes, verily, for will not all good Londoners read in the +course of a year or two that there will be a performance of "Hamlet" +at Drury Lane "towards the defraying the charge of repairing and +fitting up the chapel in Russell Court," said performance to be given +"with singing by Mr. Hughes, and entertainment of dancing by Monsieur +Cherier, Miss Lambro his scholar, and Mr. Evans. Boxes, 5s.; pit, 3s.; +gallery, 2s.; upper gallery, 1s." + +Here was an ideal union of church and stage with a vengeance, the one +being served by the other, and the whole thing done to the secular +accompaniment of singing and dancing. For an instant the town was +scandalised, but Defoe, that perturbed spirit for whom there was no +such word as rest, saw the humour of the situation. + +"Hard times, gentlemen, hard times these are indeed with the Church," +he informs the promoters of this ecclesiastical benefit, "to send her +to the playhouse to gather pew-money. For shame, gentlemen! go to the +Church and pay your money there, and never let the playhouse have +such a claim to its establishment as to say the Church is beholden to +her.... Can our Church be in danger? How is it possible? The whole +nation is solicitous and at work for her safety and prosperity. The +Parliament address, the Queen consults, the Ministry execute, the +Armies fight, and all for the Church; but at home we have other heroes +that act for the Church. Peggy Hughes sings, Monsieur Ramandon plays, +Miss Santlow dances, Monsieur Cherier teaches, and all for the Church. +Here's heavenly doings! here's harmony!" + +"In short," concludes the author of "Robinson Crusoe," "the +observations on this most preposterous piece of Church work are so +many, they cannot come into the compass of this paper; but if the +money raised here be employed to re-edify this chapel, I would have +it, as is very frequent, in like cases, written over the door in +capital letters: 'This church was re-edified anno 1706, at the expense +and by the charitable contribution of the enemies of the reformation +of our morals, and to the eternal scandal and most just reproach of +the Church of England and the Protestant religion. Witness our hands, + + "LUCIFER, Prince of Darkness,| + and | _Churchwardens_."[A] + HAMLET, Prince of Denmark, | + +[Footnote A: _Review_, June 20, 1706.] + +The "enemies of the reformation of our morals!" Defoe used the +expression satirically, but how well it suited the minds of many pious +persons, ranging all the way from bishops to humble laymen, who could +see nothing in the theatre excepting the prospective flames of the +infernal regions. Clergymen preached against the playhouse then, just +as some of them have done since, and will continue so to do until +the arrival of the Millennium. Oftentimes the criticisms of these +well-meaning gentlemen had more than a grain of truth to make them +half justifiable. The stage was still far from pure, in spite of +the improvement which was going on steadily enough, and there is no +denying the fact that several of the worst plays of the Restoration +could still claim admirers. Even "Sir Courtly Nice," wherein occurs +one of the most indecent passages ever penned, and one of the most +suggestive of songs, was received without a murmur. Congreve was +pardoned for his breaches of decorum, and Dryden was looked upon as +quite proper enough for all purposes. + +The _morale_ of the players could hardly be called unimpeachable, at +least in some instances, but the violations of social rules were not +so open as they had been in the old days. Here and there a frail +actress might depart from the stony path of virtue, or an actor give +himself up to wine and the dodging of bailiffs, yet the attending +scandals were not flaunted in the face of the public. In other words, +there were Thespians of doubtful reputation then, just as there are +now, and these black sheep helped materially to keep up against their +white brethren that remarkable prejudice which has endured even unto +the present decade. + +As a class, the players had no social position of any kind, although +the great ones of the earth, the men of rank, never hesitated to +hobnob with them when, like Mrs. Gamp, they felt "so dispoged." Even +in the enlightened reign of Queen Anne, there existed among many +intelligent persons the vague idea that one who trod the boards was +nothing more or less than a vagabond, and we are not surprised to +learn, therefore, that in a royal proclamation of the period, "players +and mountebanks" are mentioned in the same sentence, as though there +was little difference between them. + +Perhaps, the "artists" to whom the title of vagabond might be applied +with a certain degree of justice were the strolling players, who seem +to have been much after the fashion of others of their ilk, before +and since. Good-natured, poverty-stricken barnstormers they doubtless +were, living from-hand-to-mouth, and quite willing to go through the +whole gamut of tragedy, from Shakespeare to Dryden, for the sake of +a good supper. Here is a graphic picture of such a band of dramatic +ne'er-do-wells, drawn by Dick Steele in the forty-eighth issue of the +_Spectator_: + +"We have now at this place [this is a letter of an imaginary +correspondent to 'Mr. Spectator'] a company of strollers, who are very +far from offending in the impertinent splendor of the drama. They are +so far from falling into these false gallantries, that the stage is +here in his original situation of a cart. Alexander the Great was +acted by a fellow in a paper cravat. The next day, the Earl of Essex +seemd to have no distress but his poverty; and my Lord Foppington the +same morning wanted any better means to show himself a fop than by +wearing stockings of different colours.[A] In a word, though they have +had a full barn for many days together, our itinerants are still so +wretchedly poor, that without you can prevail to send us the furniture +you forbid at the playhouse, the heroes appear only like sturdy +beggars, and the heroines gypsies. We have had but one part which was +performed and dressed with propriety, and that was Justice Clodpate. +This was so well done, that it offended Mr. Justice Overdo, who, in +the midst of our whole audience, was (like Quixote in the puppet show) +so highly provoked, that he told them, if they would move compassion, +it should be in their own persons and not in the characters of +distressed princes and potentates. He told them, if they were so good +at finding the way to people's hearts, they should do it at the end of +bridges or church porches, in their proper vocation as beggars. This, +the justice says, they must expect, since they could not be contented +to act heathen warriors, and such fellows as Alexander, but must +presume to make a mockery of one of the Quorum." + +[Footnote A: It must be remembered that theatrical costumes, as we see +them to-day, did not exist. The art of dressing correctly, according +to the nature of the character and the period in which the play was +supposed to occur, was practically unknown. Even in after years we +hear of Spranger Barry playing Othello in a gold-laced scarlet suit, +small cocked hat, and knee-breeches, with silk stockings. Think of +it, ye sticklers for realism! Dr. Doran narrates how Garrick dressed +Hamlet in a court suit of black coat, "waistcoat and knee-breeches, +short wig with queue and bag, buckles in the shoes, ruffles at the +wrists, and flowing ends of an ample cravat hanging over his chest." +Barton Booth's costume for Cato was even more of an anachronism. "The +Cato of Queen Anne's day wore a flowered gown and an ample wig."] + +Poor strollers. There was a bit of stern philosophy in the advice +of the justice, for they would probably have led a merrier and more +luxurious life had they deserted the barns for the bridges and +church-porches. Perhaps the same change would suit the wandering +players who are to be found in these last years of the nineteenth +century, travelling from one third-class hotel to another, and +wondering whether they will ever make enough money to return home and +sun themselves on the New York Rialto. + +Humble as they were in the time of Queen Anne, her Government saw fit +to subject the strollers to what might be called police regulation, +and the Master of the Revels, who was a censor of plays and a +supervisor-in-general of theatrical matters, had to issue an imposing +order setting forth that whereas "several Companies of Strolling +Actors pretend to have Licenses from Noblemen,[A] and presume under +that pretence to avoid the Master of the Revels, his Correcting +their Plays, Drolls, Farces, and Interludes: which being against Her +Majesty's Intentions and Directions to the said Master: These are to +signifie That such Licenses are not of any Force or authority. There +are likewise several Mountebanks Acting upon Stages, and Mountbanks +on Horseback, Persons that keep Poppets, and others that make Shew +of Monsters, and strange Sights of Living Creatures, who presume to +Travel without the said Master of the Revels' Licence," &c. &c. The +whole pronunciamento went to show that the despised strollers were not +beneath the notice of a lynx-eyed Government. + +[Footnote A: A survival of the days when noblemen often had their own +companies of actors, and were empowered to regulate the performances +of these dramatic servants.] + +It is curious that the functionary to whom was assigned the important +critical duty of revising plays should also be obliged to concern +himself with the doings of puppets and country "side shows." Yet +before the law there was very little if any difference between a +performance of "Hamlet" by the great Betterton, and an exhibition of +the marital infelicities of Punch and Judy. Are matters so much better +now that we can afford to laugh at the incongruity? Do not theatres +devoted to the "legitimate" and dime museums, the homes of +triple-pated men, human corkscrews and other intellectual freaks, come +under the same police supervision, and rank one and all within the +same classification as "places of amusement?" Nay, to go further and +fare worse, do not some of these very freaks regard themselves as +fellow-workers in the dramatic vineyard made so fertile through the +toil of a Booth, a Mansfield or a Terry? The writer has himself heard +the manipulator of a marionette troupe (whose wife, by-the-way, posed +in a curio hall as a "Babylonian Princess") speak of Sir Henry Irving +as "a brother professional." + +This complacent individual had his prototype during the very period +which we are considering. He was an artistic gentleman named Crawley, +the happy manager of a puppet show which used to bring joy into the +hearts of the merry people thronging the famous Bartholomew Fair. One +fine day, as the manager was standing outside of his booth, he was put +into a flutter of excitement by the approach of the mighty Betterton, +in company with a country friend. The actor offered several shillings +for himself and rustic as they were about to enter the show, but this +was too much for Crawley. He saw the chance of his life, and took +advantage of it. "No, no, sir," he said to "Old Thomas," with quite +the patronising air of an equal, "we never take money of one another!" +Betterton did not see the matter in the same light, and, indignantly +throwing down the silver, stalked into the booth without so much as +thanking the proprietor of the puppets. + +What a Bedlam of a place Bartholomew must have been, with its noise, +its gew-gaws, bad beer, cheap shows, and riotous visitors. Ned Ward, +to whose descriptions modern readers are indebted, partly through the +aid of John Ashton,[A] for many a glimpse of old-time London life, +has left us a vivid picture of the fair as it appeared to him. The +entrance to it, he says, was like unto a "Belfegor's concert," with +its "rumbling of drums, mixed with the intolerable squalling of +catcalls and penny trumpets." Nor could the sense of smell have been +much better catered to than that of hearing, owing to the "singeing +of pigs and burnt crackling of over-roasted pork." Once within the +enclosure he saw all sorts of remarkable things, including the actors, +"strutting round their balconies in their tinsey robes and golden +leather buskins;" the rope-dancers, and the dirty eating-places, where +"cooks stood dripping at their doors, like their roasted swine's +flesh." Ward also looked on at several comedies, or "droles," being +enacted in the grounds, and, after coming to the conclusion that they +were like "State fireworks," and "never do anybody good but those that +are concerned in the show," he repaired to a dancing booth. Here he +had the privilege of watching a woman "dance with glasses full of +liquor upon the backs of her hands, to which she gave variety of +motions, without spilling." + +[Footnote A: See Ashton's "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne."] + +All this may have a curious interest, but it looks a trifle +inconsistent, does it not, to lament the unjustness of connecting +puppet entertainments and the like with the stage, and then +deliberately devote space to the mysteries of Bartholomew Fair? It is +more to the purpose to speak of the two theatres which claimed the +attention of London playgoers in the year 1703--the Theatre Royal, +Drury Lane, and the house in Lincoln's Inn Fields. + +Of the two, Drury Lane was the more important in an historical sense, +having been the house of the famous "King's Company," as the players +of Charles II. were styled, and then of the combined forces formed +in 1682 by the union of this organisation and the "Duke of York's +Company." This was the house into which Nance Oldfield came as a +modest _débutante_. It had been built from the designs of Wren, to +replace the old theatre destroyed by fire in 1672. + +Cibber has sketched for us the second Drury Lane's interior, as it +appeared in its original form, before the making of changes intended +to enlarge the seating capacity. "It must be observed then, that the +area or platform of the old stage projected about four feet forwarder +(_sic_), in a semi-oval figure, parallel to the benches of the pit; +and that the former lower doors of entrance for the actors were +brought down between the two foremost (and then only) pilasters; in +the place of which doors now the two stage boxes are fixt. That where +the doors of entrance now are, there formerly stood two additional +side-wings, in front to a full set of scenes, which had then almost a +double effect in their loftiness and magnificence. + +"By this original form, the usual station of the actors, in almost +every scene, was advanc'd at least ten foot nearer to the audience +than they now can be; because, not only from the stage's being +shorten'd in front, but likewise from the additional interposition of +those stage boxes, the actors (in respect to the spectators that fill +them) are kept so much more backward from the main audience than they +us'd to be. But when the actors were in possession of that forwarder +space to advance upon, the voice was then more in the centre of the +house, so that the most distant ear had scarce the least doubt or +difficulty in hearing what fell from the weakest utterance. All +objects were thus drawn nearer to the sense; every painted scene was +stronger; every grand scene and dance more extended; every rich or +fine-coloured habit had a more lively lustre. Nor was the minutest +motion of a feature (properly changing from the passion or humour it +suited) ever lost, as they frequently must be in the obscurity of +too great a distance. And how valuable an advantage the facility +of hearing distinctly is to every well-acted scene, every common +spectator is a judge. A voice scarce raised above the tone of a +whisper, either in tenderness, resignation, innocent distress, or +jealousy suppress'd, often have as much concern with the heart as +the most clamorous passions; and when on any of these occasions +such affecting speeches are plainly heard, or lost, how wide is the +difference from the great or little satisfaction received from them? +To all this the master of a company may say, I now receive ten pounds +more than could have been taken formerly in every full house. Not +unlikely. But might not his house be oftener full if the auditors were +oftener pleas'd? Might not every bad house, too, by a possibility of +being made every day better, add as much to one side of his account as +it could take from the other." + +The latter portion of Colley's remarks will be echoed by our own +audiences, which are so often doomed to see the most delicate of plays +acted in barns of theatres where all the sensitive effects of dialogue +and action are swallowed up in the immensity of stage and auditorium. +There is nothing more dispiriting, indeed, both to performers and +spectators, than the presentation of some comedy like the "School for +Scandal" in a house far better suited to the picturesque demands of +the "Black Crook" or the "County Circus." + +The theatre in Drury Lane, as Oldfield knew it, had a not +over-cheerful interior, the most noticeable features of which included +the pit, provided with backless benches, and surrounded by what would +now be called the Promenade. The latter, as Misson informs us,[A] was +taken up for the most part by ladies of quality. In addition to these +quarters and the boxes, there were two galleries reserved for the +common herd, but into which, no doubt, impecunious beaux, down in the +heels and at the mouth, would frequently stray. + +[Footnote A: Henre Misson's "Memoirs and Observations in his Travels +over England."] + +The performances generally began at 5 o'clock, but that there were +occasional lapses into unpunctuality, may be inferred from the +following advertisement in the _Daily Courant_ of October 5, 1703: + +"Her Majesty's Servants of the Theatre Royal being return'd from the +Bath, do intend, to-morrow, being Wednesday, the sixth of this instant +October to act a Comedy call'd 'Love Makes a Man, or the Fop's +Fortune.'[A] With singing and dancing. And whereas the audiences have +been incommoded by the Plays usually beginning too late, the Company +of the said Theatre do therefore give notice that they will constantly +begin at Five a Clock without fail, and continue the same Hour all the +Winter."[B] + +[Footnote A: One of Cibber's earlier plays.] + +[Footnote B: Quoted in "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne."] + +To the _fin de siècle_ playgoer the idea of beginning a performance +at so strange an hour seems nothing short of startling, until it be +remembered that people of quality were then wont to dine between three +and four o'clock of the afternoon. How they spent the earlier portion +of the day is not hard to relate. The men of fashion rose tardily, +feeling none the better, as a rule, for a night at club or tavern, and +then lounged about as best they could, visiting, sauntering in the +Mall,[A] or otherwise trying to pass the time until dinner. This solid +meal over they were ready for the theatre, where they occasionally +arrived in a state of unpleasant exhilaration, damning the play, +ogling the women and making themselves as obnoxious as possible to +the unfortunates who cared more for the stage than the commonplace +audience. + +[Footnote A: "It seem'd to me as if the World was turn'd top-side +turvy; for the ladies look'd like undaunted heroes, fit for government +or battle, and the gentlemen like a parcel of fawning, flattering +fops, that could bear cuckoldom with patience, make a jest of an +affront, and swear themselves very faithful and humble servants to the +petticoat; creeping and cringing in dishonor to themselves, to what +was decreed by Heaven their inferiours; as if their education had been +amongst monkeys, who (as it is said) in all cases give the preeminence +to their females."--"The Mall as described by Ned Ward."] + +And the women: what of them? They played cards, often for highly +respectable(?) stakes, or went to the theatre when there was nothing +better to do, and frittered away the greater number of the twenty-four +hours in a mode that the fashionable woman of 1898 would consider +positively scandalous. Sometimes the dear creatures went for a stroll +in the Mall, there to meet the English coxcombs with French manners, +or else they paid a few visits. + +"Thus they take a sip of tea, then for a draught or two of scandal +to digest it, next let it be ratafia, or any other favourite liquor, +scandal must be the after draught to make it sit easy on their +stomach, till the half hour's past, and they have disburthen'd +themselves of their secrets, and take coach for some other place to +collect new matter for defamation."[A] + +[Footnote A: Thomas Brown.] + +Drury Lane must have presented an animated but none the less +disorderly scene any evening during the season when a popular play +was to be given. Women in the boxes talking away for dear life, beaux +walking about the house, chattering, ogling and laughing, or even +sitting on the stage while the performance was in progress,[A] and the +orange girls running around to sell their wares and, not infrequently, +their own souls as well. + +[Footnote A: Owing in great part to the efforts of Queen Anne, this +wretched custom of allowing a few spectators to sit on the stage was +practically abolished before the close of the reign.] + + "Now turn, and see where loaden with her freight, + A damsel stands, and orange-wench is hight; + See! how her charge hangs dangling by the rim, + See! how the balls blush o'er the basket-brim; + But little those she minds, the cunning belle + Has other fish to fry, and other fruit to sell; + See! how she whispers yonder youthful peer, + See! how he smiles and lends a greedy ear. + At length 'tis done, the note o'er orange wrapt + Has reach'd the box, and lays in lady's lap." + +These lines by Nicholas Rowe form a graphic but unsavoury picture +of the demoralisation to be found in an early eighteenth century +audience. Affairs were much better than they used to be in the +_laissez-faire_ Restoration period, but, as may be imagined, there +was still room for improvement. The rake, the cynic and the +loosely-moraled women were still abroad in the land (have we quite +done with them even yet?), and many a hard struggle would take place +before the artificial restraint and decorum of the Georgian era would +triumph over the mocking spirit of Charles Stuart and his professional +idlers. In the meantime, as Shadwell relates, the rakes "live as much +by their wits as ever; and to avoid the clinking dun of a boxkeeper, +at the end of one act they sneak to the opposite side 'till the end +of another; then call the boxkeeper saucy rascal, ridicule the poet, +laugh at the actors, march to the opera, and spunge away the rest of +the evening." And he goes on to say that "the women of the town take +their places in the pit with their wonted assurance. The middle +gallery is fill'd with the middle part of the city, and your high +exalted galleries are grac'd with handsome footmen, that wear their +master's linen."[A] + +[Footnote A: The footmen were sometimes sent, early in the afternoon, +to keep places in the theatre until their masters or mistresses should +arrive. They created so much disturbance, however, that a stop had to +be put to the practice, and the servants were relegated to the upper +gallery. To this they were given free admission.] + +And now for a few pages about Drury Lane's rival, the theatre within +the walls of the old tennis court in Lincoln's Inn Fields. It was +the home of the company headed by the noble Betterton, the "English +Roscius," who had, in 1695, headed the revolt against the management +of the other house. At that time the tide of popular success at Drury +Lane had reached a rather low ebb, a painful circumstance due, no +doubt, to the fickleness of a public that was beginning to tire of +the favourite players and to betray a fondness for operatic and +spectacular productions rather than the "legitimate." Christopher +Rich, the manager of the theatre, was, like many of his kind, more +given to considering the weight of his purse than the scant supply of +sentiment with which nature might originally have endowed him, and so +he tried to do two characteristic things. The salaries of his faithful +employés should be reduced and the older members of the company +retired into the background as much as possible. Younger faces must +occupy the centre of the stage; even Betterton, the greatest actor of +his time, should be supplanted in some of his parts by the dissolute +George Powell, and the genius of Mrs. Barry,[A] whom Dryden thought +the greatest actress he had ever seen, was to give way to the less +matured charms of the lovely Anne Bracegirdle. + +[Footnote A: Mrs. Barry is said to have been a very elegant dresser; +but, like most of her contemporaries, she was not a very correct one. +Thus, in the "Unhappy Favourite," she played Queen Elizabeth, and in +the scene of the crowning she wore the coronation robes of James II.'s +Queen; and Ewell says she gave the audience a strong idea of the +first-named Queen.--DORAN'S "Annals of the Stage."] + +Cibber relates the story in a sympathetic vein. "Though the success of +the 'Prophetess' and 'King Arthur' (two dramatic operas in which the +patentees[A] had embark'd all their hopes) was in appearance very +great, yet their whole receipts did not so far balance their expense +as to keep them out of a large debt, which it was publicly known was +about this time contracted.... Every branch of the theatrical trade +had been sacrificed to the necessary fitting out those tall ships +of burthen that were to bring home the Indies. Plays of course were +neglected, actors held cheap, and slightly dress'd, while singers and +dancers were better paid, and embroider'd. These measures, of course, +created murmurings on one side, and ill-humour and contempt on the +other." + +[Footnote A: Alexander Davenant, Charles Killigrew, and Rich.] + +"When it became necessary therefore to lessen the charge, a resolution +was taken to begin with the salaries of the actors; and what seem'd +to make this resolution more necessary at this time was the loss of +Nokes, Montfort and Leigh, who all dy'd about the same year. No wonder +then, if when these great pillars were at once remov'd the building +grew weaker and the audiences very much abated. Now in this distress, +what more natural remedy could be found than to incite and encourage +(tho' with some hazard) the industry of the surviving actors? But the +patentees, it seems, thought the surer way was to bring down their pay +in proportion to the fall of their audiences. To make this project +more feasible they propos'd to begin at the head of 'em, rightly +judging that if the principals acquiesc'd, their inferiors would +murmur in vain. + +"To bring this about with a better grace, they, under pretence of +bringing younger actors forward, order'd several of Betterton's +and Mrs. Barry's chief parts to be given to young Powel and Mrs. +Bracegirdle. In this they committed two palpable errors; for while +the best actors are in health, and still on the stage, the public is +always apt to be out of humour when those of a lower class pretend to +stand in their places." + +And with a bit more of this timely philosophy--to which, let it be +hoped, he ever lived up to himself--Colley goes on to say that, +"tho' the giddy head of Powel accepted the parts of Betterton, Mrs. +Bracegirdle had a different way of thinking, and desir'd to be excused +from those of Mrs. Barry; her good sense was not to be misled by the +insidious favour of the patentees; she knew the stage was wide enough +for her success, without entering into any such rash and invidious +competition with Mrs. Barry, and, therefore, wholly refus'd acting any +part that properly belong'd to her." + +Then came the revolt, which the astute Betterton ("a cunning old fox" +Gildon once dubbed him) seems to have managed with all the diplomacy +of a Machiavelli. "Betterton upon this drew into his party most of the +valuable actors, who, to secure their unity, enter'd with him into a +sort of association to stand or fall together." In the meantime he +pushed the war into Africa, or, to change the simile, determined to +lead his people out of the land of bondage, as exemplified by Drury +Lane, and settle down in a new theatre. Nay, the "cunning old fox" +even went so far as to secure an interview with his most august +sovereign, William of Orange. What an audience it must have been, +with William, stiff, uncomfortable, and unintentionally repellant, +confronted by the greatest of living "Hamlets" and a group of other +players made brilliant by the presence of the imperial but not too +moral Mistress Barry, the lovely Bracegirdle, breathing the perfume of +virtue, real or assumed, and the fascinating Verbruggen.[A] Perhaps +the King found them an interesting lot, perhaps he merely regarded +them with the same good-natured curiosity he might have exhibited for +a pack of mountebanks, but in either case he was determined, with that +sombre seriousness so typical of him, to do his duty in the premises. +So he listened patiently to their complaints, and the result of it all +was that by the advice of the Earl of Dorset, the Lord Chamberlain, a +royal licence, allowing the revolters to act in a separate theatre, +was duly issued. A subscription for the erection of the new house was +immediately opened, people of quality paid in anywhere from twenty to +forty guineas a piece, and the whole affair assumed permanent shape. +Poor, tired, pre-occupied William had done what was expected of him, +lifting his eyes for the nonce from the real world, as represented by +the map of Europe, to gaze upon his subjects of the mimic boards. + +[Footnote A: Mrs. Verbruggen and Joseph Williams seceded from the new +company almost at once.] + +"My having been a witness of this unnecessary rupture," writes Cibber, +"was of great use to me when, many years after, I came to be a menager +myself. I laid it down as a settled maxim, that no company could +flourish while the chief actors and the undertakers were at variance. +I therefore made it a point while it was possible upon tolerable +terms, to keep the valuable actors in humour with their station; and +tho' I was as jealous of their encroachments as any of my co-partners +could be, I always guarded against the least warmth in any +expostulations with them; not but at the same time they might see I +was perhaps more determin'd in the question than those that gave a +loose to their resentment, and when they were cool were as apt to +recede." + +Colley was shrewd enough in dealing with players, and, as any one who +has ever had aught to do with them knows, the majority of Thespians +must be treated with the greatest tact. They are sensitive and +high-strung, yet often as unreasonable as children, and the man who +can rule over them with ease should be snapped up by an appreciative +government to conduct its most diplomatic of missions. With the +theatrical stars of his own day Cibber seems to have been firm but +prudent. "I do not remember," he tells us, "that ever I made a promise +to any that I did not keep, and, therefore, was cautious how I made +them." A fine sentiment, dear sir, eminently fit for a copy book, but +we can well believe that your promises never erred on the side of +extravagance. + +It is a fascinating subject, this study of old-time stage +life--fascinating, at least for the writer, who is tempted to run on +garrulously, describing the doings of Betterton in the new theatre, +and then wandering off to speak of the establishment of Italian opera +in England. But the limits of the chapter are reached; let us bid +good-bye to "Old Thomas," whose + + "Setting sun still shoots a glimmering ray, + Like ancient Rome, majestic in decay," + +and hasten to worship the rising sun, in the person of Mistress +Oldfield. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A BELLE OF METTLE + + +"For let me tell you, gentlemen, courage is the whole mystery of +making love, and of more use than conduct is in war; for the bravest +fellow in Europe may beat his brains out against the stubborn walls of +a town--but + + "Women born to be controll'd, + Stoop to the forward and the bold." + +These lines, taken hap-hazard from Colley Cibber's "Careless Husband," +contain the very spirit and essence of that old English comedy wherein +the hero was nothing more than a handsome rake and the heroine--well, +not a straitlaced Puritan or a prude. They breathe of the time when +honesty and virtue went for naught upon the stage, and the greatest +honours were awarded to the theatrical Prince Charming who proved +more unscrupulous than his fellows. Yet, strange as it may seem, the +"Careless Husband" is a vast improvement, in point of decency, on many +of the plays that preceded it, and marks a turning point in the moral +atmosphere of those that came after. "He who now reads it for the +first time," says Doran, "may be surprised to hear that in this comedy +a really serious and eminently successful attempt to reform the +licentiousness of the drama was made by one who had been himself a +great offender. Nevertheless the fact remains. In Lord Morelove we +have the first lover in English comedy, since licentiousness possessed +it, who is at once a gentleman and an honest man. In Lady Easy we have +what was hitherto unknown or laughed at--a virtuous married woman." To +go further, it may be added that the story points an unexceptionable +moral, proving that the best thing for a husband to do in this world +is to be true to the legitimate companion of his joys and sorrows. + +With all this in favour of the "Careless Husband," it is a curious +fact that the play, if presented in its original form, would not be +tolerated by the audiences of to-day.[A] The dialogue is often coarse +and suggestive, although for the most part full of sparkle and mother +wit, while the plot smacks of intrigue, lying and adultery. But it is +a fine work for all that; there is a delightful flavour about it, as +of old wine, and we feel in reading each successive scene that we are +uncorking a rare literary bottle of the vintage 1704. How much of the +vintage of 1898 will stand, equally well, the uncorking process if +applied in a century or two from now? How many plays in vogue at +present will be read with pleasure at that distant period? Will they +be the gruesome affairs of Ibsen, still tainted with their putrid air +of unhealthy mentality, or the clever performances of Henry Arthur +Jones; the dramas of Bronson Howard or the farcical skits of Mr. Hoyt? + +[Footnote A: Were the "Careless Husband" adapted to suit the exacting +requirements of nineteenth century modesty, its brilliancy would be +gone.] + +The "Careless Husband" has not been acted these many, many years, yet +to all who treasure the historical memories of the stage it should +be recalled with interest, for it was in this gay comedy that +the ravishing Nance shone forth in all the silvery light of her +resplendent genius. Read the pages of the old play in unsympathetic +mood and they may look musty and worm-eaten, but imagine Oldfield as +the sprightly Lady Betty Modish, the elegant Wilks as Sir Charles +Easy, and Cibber[A] himself in the empty-headed rôle of Lord +Foppington, and, presto! everything is changed. The yellow leaves are +white and fresh, the words stand out clear and distinct, and it takes +but a slight flight of fancy to hear the dingy auditorium of Drury +Lane echoing and re-echoing with laughter. For 'twas at Drury Lane +that the comedy first saw the light, in December 1704, and this was +the cast: + + LORD MORELOVE .... Mr. Powell. + LORD FOPPINGTON .... Mr. Cibber. + SIR CHARLES EASY .... Mr. Wilks. + LADY BETTY MODISE .... Mrs. Oldfield. + LADY EASY .... Mrs. Knight. + LADY GRAVEAIRS .... Mrs. Moore. + MRS. EDGING .... Mrs. Lucas. + +[Footnote A: Wilks had a singular talent in representing the graces of +nature; Cibber the deformity in the affectation of them.--STEELE.] + +How the performance came about let Cibber explain. The "Apologist" has +been speaking of Oldfield's success in Leonora, and he goes on to say: + +"Upon this unexpected sally, then, of the power and disposition of so +unforseen an actress, it was that I again took up the first two acts +of the 'Careless Husband,' which I had written the summer before, and +had thrown aside in despair of having justice done to the character +of Lady Betty Modish by any one woman then among us; Mrs. Verbruggen +being now in a very declining state of health, and Mrs. Bracegirdle +out of my reach and engag'd in another company: But, as I have said, +Mrs. Oldfield having thrown out such new proffers of a genius, I was +no longer at a loss for support; my doubts were dispell'd and I had +now a new call to finish it." + +[Illustration: ROBERT WILKS _After the Painting by_ JOHN ELLYS, 1732] + +And finish the play Cibber did, casting Nance for the volatile Lady +Betty and producing it under the most brilliant auspices. The whole +assignment of characters was admirable, but the first Lady Betty, +bursting upon the town in sudden glory, threw all her companions into +the shade. Never had such a fine lady of comedy been seen, said the +critics; never had an actress (who was not expected to be over-versed +in the affairs of the "quality") displayed such gentility, +high-breeding and evidence of being--Heaven knew how--quite "to the +manner born." Never was woman so bubbling over with humour, said the +people. As for Colley, he was delighted, of course, but believing that +an honest confession is good for the soul, even for the soul of a +Poet Laureate, he has left us the following graceful tribute to the +important part played by the actress in making the "Careless Husband" +a success: + +"Whatever favourable reception this comedy has met with from the +Publick, it would be unjust in me not to place a large share of it to +the account of Mrs. Oldfield; not only from the uncommon excellence of +her action, but even from her personal manner of conversing. There +are many sentiments in the character of Lady Betty Modish that I may +almost say were originally her own, or only dress'd with a little more +care than when they negligently fell from her lively humour." + +Here we have a clue to that vivacity and _naïveté_ which distinguished +Anne off the stage as well as on. Can it be that she, rather than +Cibber, suggested this dashing bit of dialogue from the comedy: + + * * * * * + +"LADY BETTY. [_Meeting_ LADY EASY.] Oh! my dear! I am overjoyed to see +you! I am strangely happy to-day; I have just received my new scarf +from London, and you are most critically come to give me your opinion +of it. + +"LADY EASY. O! your servant, madame, I am a very indifferent judge, +you know: what, is it with sleeves? + +"LADY BETTY. O! 'tis impossible to tell you what it is! 'Tis all +extravagance both in mode and fancy, my dear; I believe there's six +thousand yards of edging in it--then such an enchanting slope from +the elbow--something so new, so lively, so noble, so _coquet_ and +charming--but you shall see it, my dear. + +"LADY EASY. Indeed I won't, my dear; I am resolv'd to mortify you for +being so wrongfully fond of a trifle. + +"LADY BETTY. Nay, now, my dear, you are ill-natured. + +"LADY EASY. Why truly, I am half angry to see a woman of your sense so +warmly concerned in the care of her outside; for when we have taken +our best pains about it, 'tis the beauty of the mind alone that gives +us lasting value. + +"LADY BETTY. Oh! my dear! my dear! you have been a married woman to a +fine purpose indeed, that know so little of the taste of mankind. Take +my word, a new fashion upon a fine woman is often a greater proof of +her value than you are aware of. + +"LADY EASY. That I can't comprehend; for you see, among the men, +nothing's more ridiculous than a new fashion. Those of the first sense +are always the last that come into' em. + +"LADY BETTY. That is, because the only merit of a man is his sense; +but doubtless the greatest value of a woman is her beauty; an homely +woman at the head of a fashion, would not be allowed in it by the men, +and consequently not followed by the women; so that to be successful +in one's fancy is an evident sign of one's being admir'd, and I always +take admiration for the best proof of beauty, as beauty certainly +is the source of power, as power in all creatures is the height of +happiness. + +"LADY EASY. At this rate you would rather be thought beautiful than +good. + +"LADY BETTY. As I had rather command than obey. The wisest homely +woman can't make a man of sense of a fool, but the veryest fool of a +beauty shall make an ass of a statesman; so that, in short, I can't +see a woman of spirit has any business in this world but to dress--and +make the men like her. + +"LADY EASY. Do you suppose this is a principle the men of sense will +admire you for? + +"LADY BETTY. I do suppose that when I suffer any man to like my +person, he shan't dare to find fault with my principle. + +"LADY EASY. But men of sense are not so easilly humbled. + +"LADY BETTY. The easiest of any. One has ten thousand times the +trouble with a coxcomb....The men of sense, my dear, make the best +fools in the world: their sincerity and good breeding throws them so +entirely into one's power, and gives one such an agreeable thirst of +using them ill, to show that power--'tis impossible not to quench it." + + * * * * * + +Compare this bristling dialogue with the inane stuff that too often +passes for comedy nowadays, and one finds all the difference between +real humour and flippancy. We stand at the threshold of the twentieth +century, boastfully proclaiming that we do everything better than ever +could our ancestors, yet where are the new comedies that might hold a +candle to the "Careless Husband," the "Inconstant," or the "School for +Scandal?" We may be presumptuous enough, nevertheless, to hold up that +much-quoted candle, but the light from it will burn pale and dim when +placed near the golden glow of the past. Would that we could purify +some of the old-time pieces and thus preserve them for future +generations of theatre-goers. Alas! that is impossible, for to cleanse +them with a sort of moral soap and water would destroy nearly all +their delightful glitter. + +The lines of Lady Betty must have fairly sizzled with the fire of +comedy as they fell from the pretty lips of Oldfield. No wonder that +Londoners thought the character bewitching; no wonder that Cibber +wrote so enthusiastically of the actress in that wonderful Apology. +"Had her birth plac'd her in a higher rank of life," he notes, perhaps +forgetting that her very descent entitled the poor sewing-girl to a +position which poverty denied her, "she had certainly appear'd in +reality what in this play she only excellently acted, an agreeably gay +woman of quality a little too conscious of her natural attractions. I +have often seen her in private societies where women of the best +rank might have borr'd some part of her behaviour without the least +diminution of their sense or dignity. And this very morning, when I am +now writing at the Bath, November 11, 1738, the same words were said +of her by a lady of condition, whose better judgment of her personal +merit in that light has embolden'd me to repeat them." + +The best of us have a wee bit of snobbishness buried deep in the +inmost recesses of our souls, and Colley, who was neither the best nor +the worst of humanity, had this quality well developed. To see that +one has but to read the above quotation between the lines. He loved a +lord as ardently as did the next man, and he attached to rank the same +exaggerated importance which pervades, with all the unwelcome odour of +sickening incense, the literature of his age. As Macklin so well said +of him, Nature formed Cibber for a coxcomb, and it is quite probable +that he took greater delight in being thought a leader of fashion than +a writer of charming plays. Indeed, he was careful to cultivate the +society of young noblemen, and this he was able to do by virtue of +his theatrical successes, and, more helpful still, by a levity of +character which stuck to him despite his great earnestness in many +directions. Perhaps his frivolity and his love of pleasure, including +the delights of the gaming table, may have been half assumed; perhaps +he was only playing one of his many parts. He certainly succeeded in +the rôle; he enlivened the dissipations of many a beau by his quaint +conceits and flashes of humour, and went on his way rejoicing that he +could be the boon companion of twenty idle lords.[A] + +[Footnote A: Colley Cibber, one of the earliest of the dramatic +autobiographers, is also one of the most amusing. He flourished in wig +and embroidery, player, poet, and manager, during the Augustan age of +Queen Anne, somewhat earlier and somewhat later. A most egregious +fop, according to all accounts, he was, but a very pleasant one +notwithstanding, as your fop of parts is apt to be. Pope gained but +little in the warfare he waged with him, for this plain reason--that +the great poet accuses his adversary of dullness, which was not by +any means one of his sins, instead of selecting one of the numerous +faults, such as pertness, petulance, and presumption, of which he was +really guilty.--M.R. Mitford.] + +If he was surprised, therefore, that Oldfield could act the high-born +woman of fashion, the "lady of condition," who shall blame him? A +tavern does not seem the proper school for deportment, and, though one +has the bluest blood in Christendom, humble surroundings may keep it +from flowing very freely. Still, Anne was naturally a thoroughbred; +the girl had a personal distinction which was hers by right of +inheritance, and what she lacked in elegance she was quick to acquire +as she grew into womanhood. + +It is a strange coincidence that the actress who in after years +rejuvenated Lady Betty[A], and made her again a living, breathing +creature, had at one period of her career been a tavern girl. Abington +it was who seemed the very incarnation of aristocracy, and made the +audience forget that, high as she stood upon the stage, she had once +been almost in the gutter. + +[Footnote A: Mrs. Abington, one of the most graceful and spirited +actresses of the eighteenth century, was born in 1731, shortly after +the death of Oldfield. She had the honour of being the original Lady +Teazle, a part which she rehearsed under the direction of Sheridan, +and she enjoyed the further distinction of being detested by Garrick. +The latter said of her: "She is below the thought of any honest man or +woman."] + +The same welcome anomaly is noticed now, when the actresses who play +the women of the "hupper circles" with the greatest delicacy and +keenness of touch are frequently the products of the lower or middle +class. On the other hand, the _dame de société_ who trips lightly from +the drawing-room to the stage, amid the blare of trumpets and the +excitement of her friends, usually fails to make a mark. To be sure, +several of them have made marks--very black ones. + +Now let us turn the pages of the "Careless Husband," as we scan them +in Lowndes's "British Theatre," and see if we cannot extract some +amusement therefrom. The scene opens in the lodgings of Sir Charles +Easy, who, like many other dramatic personages of the eighteenth +century, has a name that signifies his character. Easy, Sir Charles is +in every sense of the word, particularly easy as to morals, for the +possession of a lovely wife does not prevent him from prosecuting an +amour with a woman of quality, Lady Graveairs, or having a vulgar +intrigue with the maid of his own spouse. In fine, he is a right +amiable gentleman, according to the curious standards of long ago; a +very prince of good fellows, who in these days would pass for a cad. + +We are hardly begun with the comedy before we are introduced to this +paragon, who enters just after Lady Easy and the maid, Edging, have +discovered fresh proofs of his flirtation with Lady Graveairs. Charles +is inclined to be philosophical in a blasé, tired way, and he says: +"How like children do we judge of happiness! When I was stinted in my +fortune almost everything was a pleasure to me, because most things +then being out of my reach, I had always the pleasure of hoping for +'em; now fortune's in my hand she's as insipid as an old acquaintance. +It's mighty silly, faith, just the same thing by my wife, too; I am +told she's extremely handsome [as though the sad devil didn't know +it], nay, and have heard a great many people say she is certainly the +best woman in the world--why, I don't know but she may, yet I could +never find that her person or good qualities gave me any concern. In +my eye, the woman has no more charms than my mother"--and we may +be sure that Sir Charles had never bothered himself much about the +attractions of the last named lady. + +Then the fair Edging comes to centre of stage and the following +innocent dialogue ensues: + + * * * * * + +"EDGING. Hum--he takes no notice of me yet--I'll let him see I can +take as little notice of him. [_She walks by him gravely, he turns her +about and holds her; she struggles_.] Pray, sir! + +"SIR CHARLES. A pretty pert air that--I'll humour it--what's the +matter, child--are you not well? Kiss me, hussy. + +"EDGING. No, the deuce fetch me if I do. [Here was a model servant, of +course.] + +"SIR CHARLES. Has anything put thee out of humour, love? + +"EDGING. No, sir, 'tis not worthy my being out of humour at ... don't +you suffer my lady to huff me every day as if I were her dog, or had +no more concern with you--I declare I won't bear it and she shan't +think to huff me. For aught I know I am as agreeable as she; and +though she dares not take any notice of your baseness to her, you +shan't think to use me so--" + + * * * * * + +But enough of this delectable conversation. The picture which it gives +us is unpleasant and coarse; there is about it none of the glitter +that can make vice so alluring. We will also skip an interview between +Sir Charles and Lady Easy (who thinks it the part of diplomacy to +hide her knowledge of her master's peccadilloes), and hurry on to the +entrance of Lord Morelove, our hero. Morelove, who must have been +admirably played by the fiery, impetuous Powell, is neither a +libertine, nor, on the other hand, a prig; he is simply a gentlemanly +and essentially human fellow who is consumed with an honest passion +for Lady Betty Modish. Nay, he would be glad to marry the fine +creature, but she has quarrelled with him and he is now telling Sir +Charles all about it: + + * * * * * + +"So, disputing with her about the conduct of women, I took the liberty +to tell her how far I thought she err'd in hers; she told me I was +rude and that she would never believe any man could love a woman +that thought her in the wrong in anything she had a mind to [Rather +exacting, are you not, Lady Betty?], at least if he dared to tell her +so. This provok'd me into her whole character, with as much spite and +civil malice, as I have seen her bestow upon a woman of true beauty, +when the men first toasted her:[A] so in the middle of my wisdom, she +told me she desir'd to be alone, that I would take my odious proud +heart along with me and trouble her no more. I bow'd very low, and as +I left the room I vow'd I never wou'd, and that my proud heart should +never be humbled by the outside of a fine woman. About an hour after, +I whipp'd into my chaise for London, and have never seen her since." + +[Footnote A: Many of the wits of the last age will assert that the +word (toast), in its present sense, was known among them in their +youth, and had its rise from an accident at the town of Bath, in the +reign of Charles II. It happened that, on a public day, a celebrated +beauty of those times was in the Cross Bath, and one of the crowd of +her admirers took a glass of the water in which the fair one stood, +and drank her health to the company. There was in the place a gay +fellow half fuddled, who offered to jump in, and swore, though he +liked not the liquor, he would have the toast. He was opposed in his +resolution; yet this whim gave foundation to the present honour which +is done to the lady we mention in our liquors, who has ever since been +called a Toast.--The _Tatler_.] + + * * * * * + +What a quaint, circumspect and very ceremonious affair must that +lovers' row have been. No swearing, no slang or loud talking, but +everything deliberate and in the best of form. Lady Betty telling +Morelove to go about his business, and that quickly, but doing so with +a stately elegance worthy of the great Mrs. Barry; the suitor bowing +low, with his white hand pressed against that "odious proud heart" +which is gently breaking at the thought of departing. What a nice +painting it would make for a Watteau fan. + +Thus nearly all our characters have their entrances, Lady Betty is +revealed to us through the medium of the lively dialogue quoted a few +pages back, and then there is another stir. In comes Lord Foppington, +otherwise Colley Cibber, in all the vapid glory of fine clothes, and +a great periwig. A very prince of coxcombs, with his soft smile and +conscious air of superiority--a mere bag of vanity, whose emptiness is +partly hidden by gorgeous raiment, gold embroidery, rings, snuff-box, +muff and what-not. With what genteel condescension does he greet Sir +Charles; how gracefully nonchalant is he to my Lord Morelove. "My dear +agreeable! _Que je t'embrasse! Pardi! Il y a cent ans que je ne t'ai +veu_. My lord, I am your lordship's most obedient humble servant." + +So Foppington takes his place in the comedy, and begins to play his +brainless but important part. He, the disconsolate Morelove, and the +brilliant Lady Betty all meet at dinner with Sir Charles and Lady +Easy. Of course the hero makes an unsuccessful attempt to regain the +good graces of his inamorata, and, of course, the coxcomb carries on a +violent flirtation with her in the angry face of his rival. With the +meal over, and everybody on the _qui vive_, this scene ensues: + + * * * * * + +Enter Foppington (who has been chatting to the ladies and who now +seeks the post-dinner conversation of his host and Lord Morelove). + +"FOPPINGTON. Nay, pr'ythee, Sir Charles, let's have a little of thee. +We have been so chagrin without thee, that, stop my breath [what a +bloodcurdling oath, so suggestive of the awful curses of our own +_jeunesse d'orée_], the ladies are gone, half asleep, to church for +want of thy company. + +"SIR CHARLES. That's hard indeed, while your lordship was among 'em. +Is Lady Betty gone too? + +"FOP. She was just upon the wing. But I caught her by the snuff-box, +and she pretends to stay to see if I'll give it her again or no. + +"MORE. Death! 'tis that I gave her, and the only present she ever +would receive from me. [_Aside to_ SIR CHARLES.] Ask him how he came +by it? + +"SIR CHARLES. Pr'ythee don't be uneasy. Did she give it to you, my +lord? + +"FOP. Faith, Charles, I can't say she did or she did not, but we were +playing the fool, and I took it--_à la_--pshah--I can't tell thee in +French, neither, but Horace touches it to a nicety--'twas _Pignas +direptum male pertinaci_. [_Nota Bene_: Our modern comedians seldom +quote Horace; their humour is not of the classic kind.] + +"MORE. So! But I must bear it. If your lordship has a mind to the box, +I'll stand by you in the keeping of it. + +"FOP. My lord, I'm passionately oblig'd to you, but I am afraid I +cannot answer your hazarding so much of the lady's favour. + +"MORE. Not at all, my lord; 'tis possible I may not have the same +regard to her frown that your lordship has. [Here's a bit of human +nature. Morelove stands in awe of that frown, but he doth valiantly +protest, and that too much, that the displeasure of Lady Betty is no +more to him than a dozen of ciphers.] + +"FOP. That's a bite, I am sure--he'd give a joint of his little +finger to be as well with her as I am. [_Aside_.] But here she comes! +Charles, stand by me. Must not a man be a vain coxcomb now, to think +this creature follow'd one? + +"SIR CHARLES. Nothing so plain, my lord. + +"FOP. Flattering devil." + +_Enter_ LADY BETTY. + +"LADY BETTY. Pshah, my Lord Foppington! Pr'ythee don't play the fool +now, but give me my snuff-box. Sir Charles, help me to take it from +him. + +"SIR CHARLES. You know I hate trouble, madame. + +"LADY BETTY. Pooh! you'll make me stay still; prayers are half over +now. + +"FOP. If you'll promise me not to go to church, I'll give it you. + +"LADY BETTY. I'll promise nothing at all, for positively I will have +it. [_Struggling with him_. + +"FOP. Then comparatively I won't part with it, ha! ha! + +[_Struggles with her_. + +"LADY BETTY. O you devil, you have kill'd my arm! Oh! Well--if you'll +let me have it, I'll give you a better. + +"MORE. [_Aside to_ SIR CHARLES.] O Charles! that has a view of distant +kindness in it. + +"FOP. Nay, now I keep it superlatively. I find there's a secret value +in it. + +"LADY BETTY. O dismal! upon my word, I am only ashamed to give it you. +Do you think I wou'd offer such an odious fancy'd thing to anybody I +had the least value for? + +"SIR CHARLES. [_Aside to_ LORD MORELOVE.] Now it comes a little +nearer, methinks it does not seem to be any kindness at all. + +"FOP. Why, really, madame, upon second view, it has not extremely the +mode of a lady's utensil: are you sure it never held anything but +snuff? + +"LADY BETTY. O! you monster! + +"FOP. Nay, I only ask because it seems to me to have very much the air +and fancy of Monsieur Smoakandfot's tobacco-box. + +"MORE. I can bear no more. + +"SIR CHARLES. Why don't then; I'll step into the company and return to +your relief immediately. + +[_Exit_. + +"MORE. [_To_ LADY BETTY.] Come, madame, will your ladyship give me +leave to end the difference? Since the slightness of the thing may +let you bestow it without any mark of favour, shall I beg it of your +ladyship? + +"LADY BETTY. O my lord, no body sooner. I beg you give it my lord. + +[_Looking earnestly on_ LORD FOPPINGTON, _who, smiling, gives it to_ +LORD MORELOVE _and then bows gravely to her_]. + +"MORE. Only to have the honour of restoring it to your lordship; and +if there be any other trifle of mine your lordship has a fancy to, +tho' it were a mistress, I don't know any person in the world who has +so good a claim to my resignation." + + * * * * * + +In the hands of Powell, Cibber, and Oldfield this scene must have had +all the sparkle of champagne; but let us hope, speaking of wine, that +the prince of paragons, Morelove, was perfectly sober. Or shall we +say comparatively sober?--for when bibulous George had just a dash of +spirits within him (and that was nearly always) there came a roseate +hue to his acting which rather added to its romantic colour. Sometimes +this colour was laid on too garishly, as the supply of fire-water +happened to be larger,[A] and Sir John Vanbrugh has himself left it on +record that Powell, as Worthy, came well nigh spoiling the original +production of the "Relapse." "I own," writes Sir John, "the first +night this thing was acted, some indecencies had like to have +happened; but it was not my fault. The fine gentleman of the play, +drinking his mistress's health in Nantes brandy, from six in the +morning to the time he waddled up upon the stage in the evening, had +toasted himself up to such a pitch of vigour, I confess I once gave up +Amanda for gone; and am since, with all due respect to Mrs. Rogers, +very sorry she escaped; for I am confident a certain lady (let no one +take it to herself that is handsome) who highly blames the play, for +the barrenness of the conclusion, would then have allowed it a very +natural close." It should be added that the Mrs. Rogers herein +mentioned as playing Amanda was a capable tragic actress whose +ambition it was to enact none but virtuous women. Her own virtue--but +we are dipping into scandal.[B] + +[Footnote A: To the folly of intoxication he added the horrors of +debt, and was so hunted by the sheriffs' officers that he usually +walked the streets with a sword (sheathed) in his hand; and if he saw +any of them at a distance, he would roar out, "Get on the other side +of the way, you dog!" The bailiff, who knew his old customer, would +obligingly answer, "We do not want you _now_, Master Powell." EDMUND +BELLCHAMBERS.] + +[Footnote B: Her fondness for virtue on the stage she began to think +might persuade the world that it had made an impression on her private +life; and the appearance of it actually went so far that, in an +epilogue to an obscure play, the profits of which were given to her, +and wherein she acted a part of impregnable chastity, she bespoke +the favour of the ladies by a protestation that in honour of their +goodness and virtue she would dedicate her unblemished life to their +example. Part of this vestal vow, I remember, was contained in the +following verse:-- + + "Study to live the character I play." + +But alas! how weak are the strongest works of art when Nature besieges +it.--CIBBER.] + +As for the "Careless Husband," the more one reads from it the more +cause is there to regret the utter hopelessness of reviving a play so +honeycombed by inuendo. How delightfully, for instance, would some of +the badinage between Morelove and the spirited Lady Betty have been +treated in the earlier days of the Daly Company, with John Drew and +Miss Rehan as the lovers. We can picture the two, as they would have +given the following lines, the one gentlemanly and effective, the +other imperious, liquid-voiced, and radiant of humour: + + * * * * * + +"MORELOVE. Do you know, madame, I have just found out, that upon your +account I have made myself one of the most ridiculous puppies upon the +face of the earth--I have upon my faith! Nay, and so extravagantly +such--ha! ha! ha!--that it's at last become a jest even to myself; and +I can't help laughing at it for the soul of me; ha! ha! ha! + +"LADY BETTY. [_Aside_.] I want to cure him of that laugh now. My lord, +since you are so generous, I'll tell you another secret. Do you +know, too, that I still find (spite of all your great wisdom, and my +contemptible qualities, as you are pleased now and then to call them), +do you know, I say, that I see under all this, you still love me with +the same helpless passion; and can your vast foresight imagine I won't +use you accordingly, for these extraordinary airs you are pleased to +give yourself.' [Talk of the independence of the 'New Woman.' Who +could have been more self-assertive than this eighteenth century +belle?] + +"MORE. O by all means, madame, 'tis as you should, and I expect it +whenever it is in your power. [_Aside_] Confusion! + +"LADY BETTY. My lord, you have talked to me this half-hour without +confessing pain. [_Pauses and affects to gape_.] Only remember it. + +"MORE. Hell and tortures! + +"LADY BETTY. What did you say, my lord? + +"MORE. Fire and furies! + +"LADY BETTY. Ha! ha! he's disorder'd. Now I am easy. My Lord +Foppington, have you a mind to your revenge at piquet? + +"FOP. I have always a mind to an opportunity of entertaining your +ladyship, madame. + +[LADY BETTY _coquets with_ LORD FOPPINGTON. + +"MORE. O Charles, the insolence of this woman might furnish out a +thousand devils. + +"SIR CHARLES. And your temper is enough to furnish a thousand such +women. Come away--I have business for you upon the terrace. + +"MORE. Let me but speak one word to her. + +"SIR CHARLES. Not a syllable; the tongue's a weapon you always have +the worst at. For I see you have no guard, and she carries a devilish +edge. + +"LADY BETTY. My lord, don't let anything I've said frighten you away; +for if you have the least inclination to stay and rail, you know the +old conditions; 'tis but your asking me pardon next day, and you may +give your passion any liberty you think fit. + +"MORE. Daggers and death! [What a picturesque, old-fashioned oath, is +it not? "Daggers and death!" Writers of English melodramas, please +take notice.] + +"SIR CHARLES. Is the man distracted? + +"MORE. Let me speak to her now, or I shall burst.[A] + +"SIR CHARLES. Upon condition you'll speak no more of her to me, my +lord, do as you please. + +"MORE. Pr'ythee pardon me--I know not what to do. + +"SIR CHARLES. Come along, I'll set you to work, I warrant you. Nay, +nay, none of your parting ogles--will you go? + +"MORE. Yes, and I hope for ever. + +[_Exit_ SIR CHARLES _pulling away_ LORD MORELOVE." + +[Footnote A: Here is the way in which several of our refined farcical +writers would have given it: + +MORELOVE. Let me speak to her now, or I shall burst. + +SIR CHARLES. Upon condition that you'll not burst here, in the +parlour, do as you please.] + + * * * * * + +There is about this and many other scenes the fragrance of an old +perfume, as of lavender. We take up the book after years of neglect, +and the odour, which is not that of sanctity, is still perceptible--a +potent reminder of the past. And Lady Betty Modish? She must +be--well-nigh on to two hundred years old (a thousand florid pardons, +sweet madame, for bringing in your age), but she is as blooming, +saucy, and interesting as ever. + +What becomes of Betty in the comedy, the reader may ask. She goes on +her triumphant way, the same cruel enchantress, until the last act, +when she is quite ready to fall into the arms of Lord Morelove. Sir +Charles Easy, touched by the constancy and devotion of his wife, +announces that he will mend his wilful habits, and Lord Foppington, +who flattered himself that Lady Betty was madly in love with him, +accepts his dismissal with great good humour. Then we have a song +setting forth how: + + "Sabina with an angel's face + By Love ordain'd for joy, + Seems of the Siren's cruel race, + To charm and then destroy. + + "With all the arts of look and dress, + She fans the fatal fire; + Through pride, mistaken oft for grace, + She bids the swains expire. + + "The god of Love, enraged to see + The nymph defy his flame, + Pronounced his merciless decree + Against the haughty dame: + + "'Let age with double speed o'ertake her, + Let love the room of pride supply; + And when the lovers all forsake her, + A spotless virgin let her die.'" + +Next, with the sound of this horrible warning ringing in our ears, Sir +Charles steps forward to give the tag: "If then [turning to Lady Easy] +the unkindly thought of what I have been hereafter shou'd intrude upon +thy growing quiet, let this reflection teach thee to be easy: + + "Thy wrong, when greatest, most thy virtue prov'd; + And from that virtue found, I blus'd and truly lov'd." + +So ends the comedy in a blaze of morality. We almost see Sir Charles +fitting on a pair of newly-made wings, as he prepares to float away to +some better planet; but let him go, by all means. We shall remain here +and watch that fair sinner, Oldfield. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A DEAD HERO + + + "The soul, secur'd in her existence, smiles + At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. + The stars shall fade away, the sun himself + Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years; + But thou shall flourish in immortal youth, + Unhurt amidst the war of elements, + The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds." + +So doth noble Cato philosophise when, in Addison's stately tragedy, he +gazes on his sword and plans to admit the Grim Visitor whom the most +of us wish to keep without our threshold until the last fatal moment. +How those lines used to thrill the classic hearts of our ancestors; +how Barton Booth, who + + "shook the stage, and made the people stare," + +could put into this mild plea for suicide a fervour that caused Drury +Lane to ring with applause. What mattered it if the actor, as Pope +related, wore a long wig and flowered gown? Cato was none the less +himself for that, nor did Booth's elegance of delivery seem unwelcome +because his clothes pictured the dandified spirit of the eighteenth +century. + +"Cato!" The play is forgotten now, but there was magic in its name in +the palmy days of its author, gentle, kindly Joseph Addison. So potent +was that magic, such vivid impression did the fate of the grand old +Roman make on more than one mind, when thus retold in lofty verse, +that the tragedy was cited as a justification of self-destruction. + + "What Cato did, and Addison approved + Cannot be wrong." + +These lines, written on a scrap of paper by Eustace Budgell, were +found shortly after the death of that odd genius. From being an +honoured contributor to the _Spectator_, Budgell descended to the +depths of infamy, poverty, and despair, and so one day he threw +himself out of a boat under London Bridge, and the waters of the +Thames closed over him for ever. He owed his early prosperity to +Addison, his cousin, and by way of gratitude he sought to throw upon +his benefactor's memory the odium of this moist and melancholy exit +from the world. + +Their lies no odium, nevertheless, where Addison is concerned. His +own life may have been clouded towards the last by the mists of +disappointment, but to us admiring moderns he is all sunshine. Not the +fiery sunshine of summer, but the genial, dignified light of an autumn +afternoon when nature seems in most reflective mood. For there was +nothing impetuous or ardent in the composition of this good-humoured +philosopher; and while he railed so well at the petty sins and +vanities of the England in which he dwelt, the satire had naught of +venom, malice, or uncharitableness. + +Nowadays Addison and the _Spectator_ go rolling down to fame together, +an indivisible reminder--the very essence indeed--of the virtues, +peccadilloes, greatness and meanness of early eighteenth century life. +We may forget that Joe was quite a politician in his prime, we are +even loth to recall that there was ever such a play as "Cato," but so +long as the English language has power to charm, the dear old volumes +of the _Spectator_ will stand out as a delightful landmark of that +literature which forms the heritage of American and Briton alike. + +How fondly do we turn the pages of the well-read essays, with their +pictures of good Sir Roger de Coverley, Will Honeycomb, and the rest +of that happy crew. And over what portrait do we linger more lovingly +than that of the _Spectator_ himself, wherein there is many a stroke +of the pen that brings Addison in view. When he tells us, for +instance: "I threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and +would not make use of my coral until they had taken away the bells +from it," the writer is indulging in a pretty bit of humour at the +expense of his own sedate youth. + + * * * * * + +"I have passed my latter years," the philosopher goes on to say, "in +this city (London), where I am frequently seen in most public places, +though there are not above half a dozen of my select friends that know +me.... There is no place of general resort wherein I do not often make +my appearance: sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a round of +politicians at Will's,[A] and listening with great attention to the +narratives that are made in those little circular audiences; sometimes +I smoke a pipe at Child's,[B] and while I seem attentive to nothing +but the postman, overhear the conversation of every table in the room. +I appear on Sunday nights at St. James' coffee house, and sometimes +join the little committee of politics in the inner room, as one who +comes there to hear and improve. My face is likewise very well known +at the Grecian, the Cocoa Tree, and in the theatres both of Drury Lane +and the Haymarket. I have been taken for a merchant upon the Exchange +for above these ten years, and sometimes pass for a Jew in the +assembly of stockbrokers at Jonathan's. In short, wherever I see a +cluster of people, I always mix with them, though I never open my lips +but in my own club." + +[Footnote A: Will's and Child's were popular coffee-houses, as were +also the Grecian, St. James', and the Cocoa Tree.] + +[Footnote B: See footnote on page 97.] + + * * * * * + +It is easy to fancy Addison, shy but ever observant, mingling with the +people who thronged the coffee-houses and there settled the affairs +of the nation, discussed their neighbours, and sipped their coffee +or stronger drink, as the case might be. He must have laughed in his +sleeve many a time as he heard the know-it-alls predicting that the +British nation was on the brink of perdition or announcing, in the +most confidential of manners, the secret policies of his Christian +Majesty, Louis XIV. of France. Probably Joe agreed with Steele, +who, in speaking of a certain coffee-house, observed that in it men +differed rather in the time of day wherein they made a figure, than in +any real greatness above one another. + +[Illustration: JOSEPH ADDISON By SIR GODFREY KNELLER] + +"I, who am at the coffee-house at six in the morning," Dick writes +on,[A] "know that my friend Beaver the haberdasher has a levee of +more undissembled friends and admirers than most of the courtiers +or generals of Great Britain. Every man about him has, perhaps, a +newspaper in his hand; but none can pretend to guess what step will be +taken in any one court of Europe, till Mr. Beaver has thrown down his +pipe, and declares what measures the allies must enter into upon this +new posture of affairs. Our coffee-house is near one of the inns of +court, and Beaver has the audience and admiration of his neighbours +from six till within a quarter of eight, at which time he is +interrupted by the students of the house; some of whom are ready +dressed for Westminster at eight in a morning, with faces as busy as +if they were retained in every cause there; and others come in their +night gowns to saunter away their time, as if they never designed to +go thither. + +[Footnote A: _Spectator_, No. 49.] + +"I do not know that I meet in any of my walks, objects which move both +my spleen and laughter so effectually as those young fellows at the +Greecian, Squire's, Searle's, and all other coffee-houses adjacent +to the law, who rise early for no other purpose but to publish their +laziness. One would think these young virtuosos take a gay cap and +slippers, with a scarf and party-coloured gown, to be ensigns of +dignity; for the vain things approach each other with an air which +shews they regard one another for their vestments. I have observed +that the superiority among these proceeds from an opinion of gallantry +and fashion. The gentleman in the strawberry sash, who presides so +much over the rest, has, it seems, subscribed to every opera this +last winter, and is supposed to receive favours from one of the +actresses."[A] + +[Footnote A: Come, says my Friend, let us step into this Coffee House +here; as you are a Stranger in the Town, it will afford you some +Diversion. Accordingly in we went, where a parcel of Muddling +Muckworms were as busy as so many Rats in an old Cheese Loft; some +Going, some Coming, some Scribling, some Talking, some Drinking, some +Smoaking, others Jangling: and the whole Room stinking of Tobacco, +like a Dutch Scoot or a Boatswain's Cabbin. The Walls being hung with +Gilt Frames, as a Farriers shop with Horse shoes; which contain'd +abundance of Rarities viz. Nectar and Ambrosia, May Dew, Golden +Elixirs, Popular Pills, Liquid Snuff, Beautifying Waters, Dentifrisis +Drops, Lozenges, all as infallible as the Pope, + + Where every one above the rest + Deservedly has gain'd the Name of Best + +(as the famous Saffold has it).--WARD.] + +As the day lengthens the scene changes. The gentleman with the +strawberry sash and uncertain morals and his servile subjects +disappear, giving place "to men who have business or good sense in +their faces, and come to the coffee-house either to transact affairs +or enjoy conversation. The persons to whose behaviour and discourse I +have most regard, are such as are between these two sorts of men; +such as have not spirits too active to be happy and well pleased in a +private condition, not complexions too warm to make them neglect the +duties and relations of life. Of this sort of men consist the worthier +part of mankind; of these are all good fathers, generous brothers, +sincere friends, and faithful subjects. Their entertainments are +derived rather from reason than imagination; which is the cause that +there is no impatience or instability in their speech or action. You +see in their countenances they are at home, and in quiet possession of +the present instant as it passes, without desiring to quicken it by +gratifying any passion or prosecuting any new design. These are the +men formed for society, and those little communities which we express +by the word neighbourhood." + +Thus moved the panorama of the coffee-house. Perhaps nothing +contributed more importantly to the gossip of the latter than did the +mention of quiet Addison himself after the night in April, 1713, which +witnessed the triumph of "Cato." The essayist had always possessed, +like many other literary men, a secret longing to be the author of a +prosperous tragedy, and in his earlier days made bold to submit a play +to the inspection of Dryden. The poet read it with polite interest, +and, on returning the manuscript to the author, expressed therefor his +profound esteem, with many apologetic _et ceteras_, and only regretted +that, in his humble opinion, the piece, if placed upon the stage, +"would not meet with its deserved success." In other words, Dryden +saw that Addison was sadly wanting in dramatic instinct, but was too +forbearing to say this in plain, set terms. As for the young man, +he must have felt much after the fashion of the aspiring writer who +receives an article back from an unappreciative magazine with a +printed slip warning him that "the rejection of manuscript does not +imply lack of merit," &c. &c., the whole thing being intended as a +moral cushion to break the suddenly descending spirits of the sender. + +Years later the great man was favoured with another cushion of this +sort by no less a person than his friend Alexander Pope, whose +august criticism he asked in behalf of "Cato." The major part of the +play--all of it, in fact, excepting the last act--had been written +when Addison first began to fall under the passionate influence of +French tragedy, with its tiresome regularity of form and attempted +imitation of the classic drama.[A] And a powerful influence it was +in the days of good Queen Anne, so powerful, verily, that it almost +emasculated the art of play-writing, and for a time well nigh bereft +the stage of originality of thought or freedom of expression. Form, +form, that was the cry still ringing in the ears of the author when he +put the finishing touches to a production which was to be famous for +the nonce, and then go down in the dark waters of oblivion with the +wreck of many like it. + +[Footnote A: Just as the school of Racine and Boileau set its face +against the extravagances of the romantic coteries, so Addison and his +English followers, adopting the principles of the French classicists, +applied them to the reformation of the English theatre. Hence arose +a great revival of respect for the political doctrines of Aristotle, +regard for the unities of time and place, attention to the proprieties +of sentiment and diction--in a word, for all those characteristics +of style afterwards summed up in the phrase "correctness."--W.J. +COURTHOPE'S "Addison."] + +"When Mr. Addison," related Pope, "had finished his 'Cato,' he brought +it to me, desired to have my sincere opinion of it, and left it with +me for three or four days. I gave him my opinion of it sincerely, +which was, 'that I thought he had better not act it, and that he would +get reputation enough by only printing it.' This I said as thinking +the lines well written, but the piece was not theatrical enough. Some +time after Mr. Addison said 'that his own opinion was the same with +mine, but that some particular friends of his, whom he could not +disoblige, insisted on its being acted,'" + +These particular friends who were not to be disobliged seem to have +been shining lights of the Whig party. It was feared that the Tories +were conspiring to reinstate the male line of Stuart the moment Queen +Anne should take herself to another world, and the friends of the +Hanoverian succession grew sorely anxious. They were filled with +delight, therefore, on hearing that Addison had, peacefully slumbering +in his desk, a drama which, as Maynwaring explained, was written not +for the love scenes, "but to support the old Roman and English public +spirit."[A] Here was a chance to inspire the people with a passion for +liberty; the story of Cato, served up in all the elegance of French +style, should point a moral against the claims of the Pretender, and +pure politics might thus be taught from the rostrum of a theatre! + +[Footnote A: Those who _affected_ to think liberty in danger, and had +_affected_ likewise to think that a stage play might preserve it.--DR. +JOHNSON.] + +So it came about that one fine day the company at Drury Lane began +the rehearsal of "Cato," under circumstances, however, which hardly +pointed to a successful production. There appears to have been some +difficulty in the assignment of parts, and it is easy to imagine +that at first the players exercised their prerogative of growling--a +prerogative not calculated to dispel the doubts fast assailing Addison +as to the outcome of the performance. Nance Oldfield made no fuss +at playing Marcia, Cato's daughter, for she was ever disposed to be +tractable; but when it came to casting the noble Roman himself the +trouble began. The story runs that the part was first offered +to Cibber, and that he sensibly refused it. Colley might make a +delightful fop, but the playing of dandies could hardly lead one up +very gracefully to the handling of Cato. + +Next came the suggestion that John Mills[A] should try the character, +but fortunately he displayed no more enthusiasm for it than did +Cibber. Cato was too old a person for him to act, he said, and so +declined to have anything to do with the elderly hero. Afterwards he +was cast for the less important rôle of Sempronius, which proved in +every way a better disposition of affairs, for Mills was a plodder +rather than a genius. He belonged to the order of actors to whom, +in the present day, we apply the charitable word of painstaking, an +adjective which shows very plainly the nature of the man, while it +likewise allows the critic to escape the charge of unkindness. We all +know the painstaking player, and always cheerfully acknowledge his +virtues, but who shall blame us if, after giving him the benefit of +his earnestness, we yawn and creep out into the lobby while he holds +the stage? + +[Footnote A: Mills was considered one of the most useful actors that +ever served in a theatre, but, though invested by the patronage of +Wilks with many parts of the highest order, he had no pretensions +to quit the secondary line in which he ought to have been +placed.--BELLCHAMBERS.] + +That Mills sometimes inspired this feeling of boredom may be imagined +from the way in which his performance of Macbeth was once received. To +those who remembered how magnificently Betterton had played the part, +the chill formalism of the new aspirant must have seemed presumptuous, +and one night the contrast proved too much for a country gentleman +possessed of more honesty than politeness. After watching the progress +of the tragedy with growing indignation his feelings became unbearable +at a certain point in the fourth act, where George Powell came on +as Lennox. "For God's sake, George," shouted the squire, "give us a +speech and let me go home!"[A] + +[Footnote A: "I recollect," says Bellchambers, "an incident of the +same sort occurring at Bristol, where a very indifferent actor +declaimed so long and to such little purpose that an honest farmer, +who sat in the pit, started up with evident signs of disgust, and +waving his hand, to motion the speaker off, cried out, 'Tak 'un away, +tak 'un away, and let's have another.'"] + +Thus every one must have given a sigh of relief when industrious John +objected to the age of Cato; every one, at least, excepting Wilks, who +had taken this actor under his theatrical wing and sought to elevate +him above one far greater than either of them--Barton Booth. The fact +was that Wilks hid within his breast the troublesome, green-eyed +monster of jealousy; he feared the rising genius of Booth, and, now +that he was part manager of Drury Lane, probably took pains to keep +the rival as much as possible in the background. Unfortunately for +this plan of annihilation the screen provided in the commonplace +person of Mills proved entirely too flimsy to hide the coming man. +Barton Booth was in many ways an ideal actor, in that he was blessed +with the poetic imagination and scholarship to understand his rôles +and the tragic power to play them. He had, furthermore, a voice of +marvellous resonance, an aristocratic bearing and a handsome face and +figure which were sure to attract attention, whether he appeared +upon the stage or amid the more genial confines of the Bedford +coffee-house. + +It was to Booth, therefore, that Cato was finally assigned, the other +masculine parts being handed over to Cibber, Mills, Wilks, Powell, +Ryan, Bowman, and Keen. The latter was a popular actor of majestic +mould who used to play the King in "Hamlet" (a rôle too often left +to the mercies of third-rate mouthers) in a fashion which would +have justified the loyal and historic gentleman who preferred that +character to all others in the play. As already mentioned, Marcia was +to be acted by Oldfield, and to Mistress Porter, who usually revelled +in the delineation of high and mighty passions, was given gentle, +tearful Lucia, daughter to Lucius (Keen). + +The rehearsals now went on apace, but evidently without much show of +enthusiasm. Addison assisted, probably dispirited and nervous but +outwardly unruffled, for he always presented a well-starched front to +the watching-world. Honest Dick Steele looked on, and in that frank, +ingenuous way he told his friends, with perhaps a suspicious flush +on his winsome face and a swimming gleam in his eyes, that he was +preparing to pack the theatre on the opening night in the interests of +worried Joe. Poor, good-hearted Dick! Then there was Parson Swift, who +sat behind the scenes with mild interest on his face and a sneer in +that ugly, gnarled heart of his. "We stood on the stage," he writes to +Stella, "and it was foolish enough to see the actors prompting every +moment, and the poet directing them, and the drab that acts Cato's +daughter (Mrs. Oldfield) out in the midst of a passionate part, and +then calling out 'What's next?'" + +Lastly came the great Mr. Pope, with that poor, deformed body and +brilliant mind. He was not content merely to be a "looker on in +Vienna," or in Utica; he pottered around unceasingly, hobnobbed with +Oldfield (who now began to take the liveliest interest in the play), +and suggested several alterations in the text. Once Nance ventured to +criticise a speech of Portius; the amiable Addison, unlike the fashion +of some other amiable authors, heard her objections with approval, +and soon Mr. Pope was again called into consultation. There was more +hobnobbing, a change of diction, and the rehearsals continued. Then, +to cap the climax of poetic condescension, little Alexander honoured +"Cato" with a flowing prologue wherein he set forth, archaically +enough, that + + "To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, + To raise the genius, and to mend the heart, + To make mankind in conscious virtue bold, + Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold: + For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage, + Commanding tears to stream through every age; + Tyrants no more their savage nature kept, + And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept." + +At last came the eventful evening of April 13, when "Cato" saw the +light. The theatre was packed, just as Steele promised that it should +be, yet the audience would have been large had Dick never existed. +There were no press agents to "boom" matters, but as it became +known that the Whigs stood sponsors for the tragedy there was a +corresponding desire to be in either at its triumph or its death. The +result has passed into history. The characters were, for the most +part, finely acted, and the play was admired for its lofty sentiments +and elegance of expression, while the Tories, _mirabile dictu_, vied +with their enemies in enthusiastic tokens of approval. The Whigs went +to the theatre expecting to appropriate all of Mr. Addison's illusions +to the sacred cause of liberty, and what must have been their horror +on finding that the Tories, refusing to be discomfited by any of those +illusions, applauded as violently as did the friends of Hanover? + +Pope has left us a description of this first night, in a letter to Sir +William Trumbull. "Cato," he writes, "was not so much the wonder of +Rome in his days, as he is of Britain in ours; and though all the +foolish industry possible has been used to make it thought a party +play, yet what the author once said of another may the most properly +in the world be applied to him on this occasion: + + "'Envy itself is dumb, in wonder lost, + And factions strive who shall applaud him most.'[A] + +[Footnote A: From Addison's poem of "The Campaign," wherein the author +sings of the greatness of Marlborough.] + +"The numerous and violent claps of the Whig party on the one side of +the theatre, were echoed by the Tories on the other; while the +author sweated behind the scenes with concern to find their applause +proceeding more from the hand than the head. This was the case too of +the prologue writer, who was clapped into a staunch Whig at almost +every two lines. I believe you have heard that after all the applause +of the opposite faction, my lord Bolingbroke sent for Booth, who +played Cato, into the box between one of the acts, and presented +him with fifty guineas, in acknowledgement (as he expressed it) +for defending the cause of liberty so well against a Perpetual +Dictator.[A] The Whigs are unwilling to be distanced this way, and +therefore design a present to the same Cato very speedily; in the +meantime they are getting ready as good a sentence as the former on +their side: so betwixt them it is probable that Cato (as Dr. Garth +expressed it) may have something to live upon after he dies." + +[Footnote A: It is suggested by Macaulay that Lord Bolingbroke +hinted at "the attempt which Marlborough had made to convert the +Captain-Generalship into a patent office, to be held by himself +for life." The anecdote of Pope gives us an amusing example of the +stealing of Whig thunder by the clever Tories.] + +So important a rôle did politics play in this first performance of +"Cato" that to many in the house the merits of the actors must have +passed unrecognised. And yet those merits were striking. Who could +have made a lovlier Marcia than did Nance; and how thoroughly she +must have justified the passion of that most virtuous of princes, the +sententious Juba. The character was not worthy of her genius, but +that did not prevent this true artist from giving to it all manner of +dignity and beauty. Who could help pitying her lover when Marcia first +repelled his amorous advances: + + "I should be griev'd, young Prince, to think my presence + Unbent your thoughts, and slacken'd 'em to arms, + While, warm with slaughter, our victorious foe + Threatens aloud, and calls you to the field." + +And when Marcia, having sent away the youth, explained: + + "His air, his voice, his looks, and honest soul + Speak all so movingly in his behalf, + I dare not trust myself to hear him talk," + +the apology came with such delicious grace and plaintiveness that the +house forgot her coldness in sorrow for her woes. + +And Barton Booth? His superb acting of Cato raised him to such an airy +pinnacle of fame that he soon became one of the managers of Drury +Lane. The other players were evidently all more or less effective, +barring Cibber, whose Syphax (the Numidian warrior who seeks the +downfall of Cato), must have made the judicious grieve. Indeed we can +easily believe that he used so many grotesque motions and spoke his +lines with such a cracked voice as to win only ridicule and "a loud +laugh of contempt." + +Lord Bolingbroke's gift of fifty guineas had a disturbing effect not +only on the Whigs but on Manager Dogget as well. That worthy feared +the success of "Cato" would cause Booth to claim a share in the +direction of Drury Lane, as he did, of course, in a very short time. +In the hopes of shutting off all pretensions to this honour by a +paltry expedient Dogget thought that Cibber, Wilks and himself, as +joint managers, could relieve themselves of every obligation by +duplicating the generosity of the Tory statesman. + +"He insinuated to us (for he was a staunch Whig)" relates Colley, +"that this present of fifty guineas was a sort of Tory triumph which +they had no pretence to; and that for his part he could not bear that +so redoubted a champion for liberty as Cato should be bought off to +the cause of a contrary party. He therefore, in the seeming zeal of +his heart, proposed that the managers themselves should make the +same present to Booth which had been made him from the boxes the day +before. This, he said, would recommend the equality and liberal spirit +of our management to the town, and might be a means to secure Booth +more firmly in our interest, it never having been known that the skill +of the best actor had received so round a reward or gratuity in one +day before. + +"Wilks, who wanted nothing but abilities to be reduc'd to tell him +that it was my opinion that Booth would never be made easy by +anything we could do for him, 'till he had a share in the profits +and management; and that, as he did not want friends to assist him, +whatever his merit might be before, every one would think since his +acting of Cato, he had now enough to back his pretentions to it." + +In the end Cibber's objections were overruled, "and the same night +Booth had the fifty guineas, which he receiv'd with a thankfulness +that made Wilks and Dogget perfectly easy, insomuch that they seem'd +for some time to triumph in their conduct, and often endeavour'd to +laugh my jealousy out of countenance. But in the following winter the +game happened to take a different turn; and then, if it had been a +laughing matter," says Colley, "I had as strong an occasion to smile +at their former security."[A] + +[Footnote A: After Booth was admitted into the management Dogget +retired in disgust from Drury Lane, and brought suit against his +former associates. He was decreed the sum of £600 for his share in the +patent, with allowances for interest. "I desir'd," wrote Cibber, "we +might all enter into an immediate treaty with Booth, upon the terms of +his admission. Dogget still sullenly reply'd, that he had no occasion +to enter into any treaty. Wilks then, to soften him, propos'd that, if +I liked it, Dogget might undertake it himself. I agreed. No! he would +not be concern'd in it. I then offer'd the same trust to Wilks, +if Dogget approv'd of it. Wilks said he was not good at making of +bargains, but if I was willing, he would rather leave it to me. Dogget +at this rose up and said, we might both do as we pleas'd, but that +nothing but the law should make him part with his property--and so +went out of the room."] + +"So much for one result of 'Cato's' first performance. The play had a +run of thirty-five nights and as cunning as Dogget, was so charm'd +with the proposal that he long'd that moment to make Booth the present +with his own hands; and though he knew he had no right to do it +without my consent, had no patience to ask it; upon which I turned to +Dogget with a cold smile [what a freezing, polar expression Cibber +could put on when he desired] and told him, that if Booth could be +purchas'd at so cheap a rate, it would be one of the best proofs of +his economy we had ever been beholden to: I therefore desired we might +have a little patience; that our doing it too hastily might be only +making sure of an occasion to throw the fifty guineas away; for if we +should be obliged to do better for him, we could never expect that +Booth would think himself bound in honour to refund them." + +From this little conversation we see that art is not always the one +beacon light of the player or the manager. Cibber argued with his +natural shrewdness, but Wilks would not be convinced, and began, "with +his usual freedom of speech," to treat the suggestion "as a pitiful +evasion of their intended generosity." + +"But Dogget, who was not so wide of my meaning, clapping his hand upon +mine, said, with an air of security, O! don't trouble yourself! there +must be two words to that bargain; let me alone to manage that matter. +Wilks, upon this dark discourse, grew uneasy, as if there were some +secret between us that he was to be left out of. Therefore, to avoid +the shock of his intemperance, I was the town crowded to the theatre. +Even the good Queen, who must have been more or less bored at the fuss +bestowed upon it, actually suggested that Mr. Addison should dedicate +the tragedy to her Royal self. To inscribe a work to a sovereign means +little or nothing in these days of republicanism, real or assumed, +but Anne's request came as a great compliment It was a compliment, +however, which had to be dispensed with, for Addison had already +proposed to dedicate 'Cato' to the Duchess of Marlborough, and he +harboured no wish to mortify the aggressive Sarah (now out of favour +with the Queen) by acting upon the hint of her one-time friend and +mistress. So the author diplomatically ignored both horns of the +dilemma, or, in other words, determined to consecrate his tragedy +neither to Queen nor Duchess." + +When June was well nigh ended the Drury Lane players transplanted +"Cato" to the scholarly environment of Oxford, where, as friend Cibber +tells us, "a great deal of that false, flashy wit and forc'd humour," +which had been the delight of London, was rated at "its bare +intrinsick value." The play was admirably suited to the temper of a +university audience, and its success proved so great, its sentiment so +uplifted, that Dr. Sandridge, Dean of Carlisle, wrote to Barton Booth +expressing his wish that "all discourses from the pulpit were as +instructive and edifying, as pathetic and affecting," as those +provided by Mr. Addison. + +The "Apology" gives us an interesting account of the favour accorded +to "Cato," above all other modern plays, by the dwellers in thoughtful +Oxford. + +"The only distinguished merit allow'd to any modern writer was to the +author of 'Cato,' which play being the flower of a plant raised in +that learned garden (for there Mr. Addison had his education), what +favour may we not suppose was due to him from an audience of brethren, +who from that local relation to him might naturally have a warmer +pleasure in their benevolence to his fame? But not to give more weight +to this imaginary circumstance than it may bear, the fact was, that on +our first day of acting it, our house was in a manner invested, and +entrance demanded by twelve a clock at noon, and before one it was not +wide enough for many who came too late for places. The same crowds +continued for three days together (an uncommon curiosity in that +place) and the death of Cato triumphed over the injuries of Caesar +everywhere. To conclude, our reception at Oxford, whatever our merit +might be, exceeded our expectation." + +The ladies and gentlemen of Drury Lane posted away from Oxford in a +blaze of glory. They had actually behaved themselves, these despised +mummers, and their contribution towards the repairing of a church was +almost sufficient to bring them within the pale of holiness. "At our +taking leave," writes Colley, jubilantly, "we had the thanks of the +vice-Chancellor for the decency and order observ'd by our whole +society, an honour which had not always been paid upon the same +occasions; for at the act in King William's time I remember some +pranks of a different nature had been complain'd of. Our receipts had +not only enabled us (as I have observ'd) to double the pay of every +actor, but to afford out of them towards the repair of St. Mary's +Church the contribution of fifty pounds. Besides which, each of the +three managers had to his respective share, clear of all charges, one +hundred and fifty more for his one and twenty days' labour, which +being added to his thirteen hundred and fifty shared in the winter +preceding, amounted in the whole to fifteen hundred, the greatest sum +ever known to have been shared in one year to that time. And to the +honour of our auditors here and elsewhere be it spoken, all this was +rais'd without the aid of those barbarous entertainments with which, +some few years after (upon the re-establishment of two contending +companies) we were forc'd to disgrace the stage to support it" + +The success of "Cato" proved as brilliant in a literary as in a +dramatic sense. The play was translated into several languages, not +forgetting the Latin, and even Voltaire was pleased, in after years, +to come down from his critical throne and honour Mr. Addison's verses +with his praise.[A] "The first English writer," he said, "who composed +a regular tragedy and infused a spirit of elegance through every part +of it was the illustrious Mr. Addison." Poor Shakespeare! + +[Footnote A: One sees in Voltaire (who observed that "Hamlet" "appears +the work of a drunken savage") the old-fashioned tendency to belittle +Shakespeare. This tendency has one of its most amusing reflections in +a criticism by Hume, who said of the great poet that "a reasonable +propriety of thought he cannot for any time uphold."] + +Smile as we may over that frigid elegance, it seemed none the less +impressive in the days of auld lang syne, and even yet we hear echoes +of the play in a round of familiar quotations. + + "The woman who deliberates is lost;" + +And + + "'Tis not in mortals to command success, + But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it;" + +And + + "Curse on his virtues, they've undone his country." + +still fall lightly on our ear. But the tragedy is forgotten, and why +seek to resurrect those once-beloved characters? Cato, Marcia, Juba, +and the rest--figures of classic marble rather than of flesh and +blood--have all gone to that bourne whence no stage travellers return. +They lie buried 'mid all the pomp of mouldering books, and there let +them peacefully decay. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +IN TRAGIC PATHS + + +The average comedian will whisper, if you are fortunate enough to get +him in confidential mood, that he was really designed by nature to +tread the stately walks of tragedy; that had not cruel fate intervened +he would now be enthralling the town with his Hamlet, Macbeth, or +Othello, and that even yet he has not lost all hope of adorning the +kingdom of Melpomene. But he is not to be believed, in at least +ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, and while we listen politely to +his story of blasted ambition our hearts are exceeding thankful that +the chance he looked for never came. + +Nance Oldfield brilliantly reversed this order of things. Although she +shone in comedy with the brighter light, she could play serious rôles +with majesty and power, and feel, or pretend to feel, a trifle bored +in so doing. "I hate to have a page dragging my train about," she used +to cry, with a pout of the pretty mouth; "why don't they give Porter +those parts? She can put on a better tragedy face than I can." Yet +whatever might be the undoubted capabilities of Porter for assuming +the tragic mask, audience and manager sometimes insisted that Nance +should banish all the sunlight and becloud her features with the +sorrows of a high-strung heroine. + +One of these heroines was Andromache, the title personage of "The +Distressed Mother," an adaptation by Ambrose Philips of Racine's +"Andromaque." This play seems heavy enough if we bother to read it +now, but it had a thousand charms for theatre-goers in the days when +Mr. Philips frequented Button's coffee-house and there hung up a cane +which he threatened to use upon the body of the great Mr. Pope.[A] +Addison, whom tradition credits with writing the entertaining +epilogue, took all manner of interest in the tragedy, and the +_Spectator_ treated it to an advance notice which we degenerates might +term an unblushing "boom." + +[Footnote A: Pope had ventured to sneer at Philips' "Pastorals."] + +"The players, who know I am very much their friend," says the +_Spectator_[A] "take all opportunities to express a gratitude to me +for being so. They could not have a better occasion of obliging me, +than one which they lately took hold of. They desired my friend Will +Honeycomb to bring me the reading of a new tragedy; it is called 'The +Distressed Mother.' I must confess, though some days are passed since +I enjoyed that entertainment, the passions of the several characters +dwell strongly upon my imagination; and I congratulate the age, that +they are at last to see truth and human life represented in the +incidents which concern heroes and heroines. The style of the play +is such as becomes those of the first education, and the sentiments +worthy those of the highest figure. It was a most exquisite pleasure +to me, to observe real tears drop from the eyes of those who had long +made it their profession to dissemble affliction; and the player, who +read, frequently threw down the book, until he had given vent to +the humanity which rose in him at some irresistible touches of the +imagined sorrow." + +[Footnote A: _Spectator_, No. 290, February 1, 1711-12. This essay has +been credited to Steele.] + +This picture of woe would hardly suit the theories of those +hard-hearted players who believe that the true artist is never +"carried away," or affected by the pathos of his part. Surely, the +scene is ridiculous rather than imposing, and one is tempted to +suggest, albeit with bated breath, that the _Spectator_ was indulging +in a bit of good-natured exaggeration. Exaggeration did we say? The +modern newspaper writer, who is always glad, when off duty, to call +things by their plain names, would brand the notice of the "Distressed +Mother" as a bare-faced puff. And who could quarrel with his +scepticism? Actors are not in the habit of weeping over the reading of +a play; they have little time for such briny luxury. + +Yet in this very number of the _Spectator_ we have George Powell, who +was cast for Orestes in Mr. Philips' tragedy, writing that the grief +which he is required to portray will seem almost real enough to choke +his utterance. Here is what the hypocrite says: + +"Mr. SPECTATOR,--I am appointed to act a part in the new tragedy +called 'The Distressed Mother.' It is the celebrated grief of Orestes +which I am to personate; but I shall not act it as I ought, for I +shall feel it too intimately to be able to utter it. I was last night +repeating a paragraph to myself, which I took to be an expression +of rage, and in the middle of the sentence there was a stroke of +self-pity which quite unmanned me. Be pleased, Sir, to print this +letter, that when I am oppressed in this manner at such an interval, a +certain part of the audience may not think I am out; and I hope with +this allowance, to do it with satisfaction.--I am, Sir, your most +humble servant, GEORGE POWELL." + +Poor dashing, dissipated, brandy-bibbing George! Perhaps you had as +keen an eye to the value of advertising as have certain players who +never heard your name.[A] + +[Footnote A: The original cast of the "Distressed Mother" included +Booth (Pyrrhus), Powell (Orestes), Mills (Pylades), Mrs. Oldfield +(Andromache), and Mrs. Porter (Hermione).] + +The production of the "Distressed Mother" (March, 1712), was +accompanied by an exciting popular demonstration which must for the +nonce have made Powell quite forget those lines which gave him such +exquisite sorrow. It all came from the jealousy of Mrs. Rogers, she of +more virtue on the stage than off, and who always cherished, with the +assistance of kind friends, a very sincere belief that her powers far +exceeded those of Oldfield.[A] + +[Footnote A: The rivalry between Rogers and Oldfield once reached such +a pass that Wilks sought to end it, and stop the complaints of the +former's admirers, by a severe expedient. "Mr. Wilks," says Victor, +"soon reduced this clamor to demonstration, by an experiment of Mrs. +Oldfield and Mrs. Rogers playing the same part, that of Lady Lurewell +in the 'Trip to the Jubilee;' but though obstinacy seldom meets +conviction, yet from this equitable trial the tumults in the house +were soon quelled (by public authority) greatly to the honour of Mr. +Wilks. I am, from my own knowledge thoroughly convinced that Mr. +Wilks had no other regard for Mrs. Oldfield but what arose from the +excellency of her performances. Mrs. Roger's conduct might be censured +by some for the earnestness of her passion towards Mr. Wilks, but +in the polite world the fair sex has always been privileged from +scandal."] + +So when Nance was cast for the distraught Andromache there was +trouble. Rogers demanded the part, and on being refused set about to +make things as unpleasant as possible for her detested rival. Friends +of the disappointed actress packed Drury Lane when the "Distressed +Mother" was performed, and the appearance of Oldfield was made the +signal for a riot. Royal messengers and guards were sent to put an end +to the disorder, but the play had to be stopped for that night. + +Colley, who had ever an eye to the pounds, shillings and pence, was +disgusted at what he chose to call an exhibition of low malevolence. +"We have been forced," he says, "to dismiss an audience of a hundred +and fifty pounds, from a disturbance spirited up by obscure people, +who never gave any better reason for it, than that it was their fancy +to support the idle complaint of one rival actress against another, in +their several pretentious to the chief part in a new tragedy. But as +this tumult seem'd only to be the Wantonness of _English_ Liberty, I +shall not presume to lay any further censure upon it." + +Finally the combined charms of Oldfield and the "Distressed Mother" +triumphed, and young beaux who had helped to swell the riot were +glad to come back meekly to Drury Lane and extol the attractions of +Andromache. In the play itself Nance must have been all that the +troublous part suggested, but it was when she tripped on gaily and +gave the humorous epilogue that the house found her most delightful. +She, who could reign so imperially in tragedy, had glided back to her +better-loved kingdom of comedy, and what cared her captivated hearers +if this self-same epilogue made an inharmonious ending to a serious +play. It was quite enough that Andromache, with all her sufferings +dispelled, should say melodiously: + + "I hope you'll own, that with becoming art, + I've play'd my game, and topp'd the widow's part. + My spouse, poor man, could not live out the play, + But dy'd commodiously on wedding-day,[A] + While I his relict, made at one bold fling, + Myself a princess, and young Sty a King. + You, ladies, who protract a lover's pain, + And hear your servants sigh whole years in vain; + Which of you all would not on marriage venture, + Might she so soon upon her jointure enter?" + +[Footnote A: This is a coy reference to Pyrrhus, who was murdered +while his marriage to Hector's widow was being celebrated with royal +pomp. As he fell, it will be remembered, the King placed his crown +upon the head of Andromache.] + +An epilogue leading off with these lines was hardly an appropriate +ending to a tragedy, yet are we fastidious enough in these days to +sneer at the anomaly? We have banished prologue and afterpiece as +something old-fashioned and inartistic, but never turn one solitary +eyelash when Hamlet follows up his death by rushing before the curtain +and grinning his thanks. Desdemonas who come forward, after the +smothering scene, to receive flowers, and Romeos and Juliets who rise +from the tomb that they may bow and smirk before an audience--while +we have such as these among us, let us not cast stones at the early +playgoer. + +Addison has left, in the _Spectator_, a delightful story of dear old +Sir Roger de Coverley's experience with the "Distressed Mother." Sir +Roger, it appears, confessed that he had not seen a play for twenty +years, and was very anxious to know "who this distressed mother was; +and upon hearing that she was Hector's widow, he told me that her +husband was a brave man, and that when he was a schoolboy he had read +his life at the end of the dictionary."[A] So the old gentleman, +accompanied by the _Spectator_, Captain Sentry, and a retinue of +servants, set out in state for Drury Lane, and on arriving there went +into the pit. + +[Footnote A: _Spectator_, No. 335.] + +"As soon as the house was full, and the candles lighted, my old +friend stood up, and looked about him with that pleasure which a mind +seasoned with humanity naturally feels in itself, at the sight of a +multitude of people who seem pleased with one another, and partake of +the same common entertainment. I could not but fancy to myself, as the +old man stood up in the middle of the pit, that he made a very proper +centre to a tragic audience. Upon the entering of Pyrrhus, the knight +told me, that he did not believe the king of France himself had a +better strut. I was indeed very attentive to my old friend's remarks, +because I looked upon them as a piece of natural criticism, and was +well pleased to hear him, at the conclusion of almost every scene, +telling me that he could not imagine how the play would end. One while +he appeared much concerned for Andromache; and a little while after +for Hermione; and was extremely puzzled to think what would become of +Pyrrhus. + +"When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obstinate refusal to her lovers +importunities, he whispered me in the ear, that he was sure she +would never have him; to which he added, with a more than ordinary +vehemence, 'You can't imagine, sir, what it is to have to do with a +widow.' Upon Pyrrhus's threatening afterwards to leave her, the knight +shook his head, and muttered to himself, 'Ay, do if you can.' This +part dwelt so much upon my friend's imagination, that at the close of +the third act, as I was thinking of something else, he whispered me +in my ear, 'These widows, sir, are the most perverse creatures in +the world. But pray,' says he, 'you that are a critic, is the play +according to your dramatic rules, as you call them? Should your people +in tragedy always talk to be understood? Why, there is not a single +sentence in this play that I do not know the meaning of.' + +"The fourth act very luckily began before I had time to give the old +gentleman an answer. 'Well,' says the knight, sitting down with great +satisfaction, 'I suppose we are now to see Hector's ghost,' He then +renewed his attention, and, from time to time, fell a praising the +widow. He made, indeed, a little mistake as to one of her pages, whom +at his first entering he took for Astyanax; but quickly set himself +right in that particular, though, at the same time he owned he should +have been very glad to have seen the little boy, who, says he, must +needs be a very fine child by the account that is given of him. Upon +Hermione's going off with a menace to Pyrrhus, the audience gave a +loud clap, to which Sir Roger added, 'On my word, a notable young +baggage!'" + +We can imagine Sir Roger going, a year later, to see Mrs. Oldfield +carry all before her as Jane Shore in Nicholas Rowe's play of that +name. The author had once been an ardent admirer of the glacierlike +but lovely Bracegirdle, at whose haughty shrine he long worshipped in +the hopes that the ice of her reserve might some day melt; and the +wits of the coffee-house were wont to say, not without a grain of +truth, that when the poet wrote dramas to fit Bracegirdle as the +heroine, the lovers therein always pleaded his own passion[A]. Now +that the charmer had left the stage, Rowe was forced to entrust the +title character of Jane Shore to Nance, who vowed, no doubt, she was +thoroughly bored at having to walk once again through a vale of tears. +But she made another triumph (the author himself coached her in the +part), and helped to give the production all manner of success. + +[Footnote A: As Cibber says, Mrs. Bracegirdle "inspired the best +authors to write for her, and two of them [Rowe and Congreve] when +they gave her a lover in a play, seem'd palpably to plead their +own passions, and make their private court to her in fictitious +characters."] + +It is a curious fact that the writing of the tragedy was indirectly +due to political disappointment. Rowe had set himself assiduously to +the study of Spanish with the idea of securing from Lord Halifax a +diplomatic position, and his reward for this energy was so intangible +that he soon gave up hopes of foreign travel and turned his attention +to the tribulations of Jane. In other words, the noble Halifax merely +expressed his satisfaction that Mr. Rowe could now read "Don Quixote" +in the original. + +Thus Nance played on, sometimes in comedy, and again in tragedy, when, +despite her customary objections, the pages had to drag her train +about. It was a train that swept all before it. + +The speaking of trains and pages suggests the fact that in old times +the heroes and heroines of tragedy always wore, either in peculiarity +of dress or pomp of surroundings, the badge of greatness. Nowadays a +few bars of romantic music, to usher these characters on the stage, +will suffice. But things were different then; our ancestors insisted +that the aforesaid _dramatis personnae_ should be labelled, frilled +and furbelowed. + +Addison has an interesting essay on the subject.[A] + +[Footnote A: _Spectator_, No. 42.] + +"But among all our tragic artifices," he says, "I am the most offended +at those which are made use of to inspire us with magnificent ideas of +the persons that speak. The ordinary method of making an hero, is to +clap a huge plume of feathers upon his head which rises so very high, +that there is often a greater length from his chin to the top of his +head than to the sole of his foot. One would believe that we thought +a great man and a tall man the same thing. This very much embarrasses +the actor, who is forced to hold his neck extremely stiff and steady +all the while he speaks; and notwithstanding any anxieties which he +pretends for his mistress, his country, or his friends, one may see by +his action, that his greatest care and concern is to keep the plume of +feathers from falling off his head. For my own part, when I see a man +uttering his complaints under such a mountain of feathers, I am apt +to look upon him rather as an unfortunate lunatic, than a distressed +hero. + +"As these superfluous ornaments upon the head make a great man, +a princess generally receives her grandeur from those additional +encumbrances that fall into her tail; I mean the broad sweeping train +that follows her in all her motions, and finds constant employment for +a boy who stands behind her to open and spread it to advantage. I do +not know how others are affected at this sight, but I must confess my +eyes are wholly taken up with the page's part; and, as for the queen, +I am not so attentive to any thing she speaks, as to the right +adjusting of her train, lest it should chance to trip up her heels, or +incommode her, as she walks to and fro upon the stage. It is, in my +opinion, a very odd spectacle to see a queen venting her passion in +a disordered motion, and a little boy taking care all the while that +they do not ruffle the tail of her gown. The parts that the two +persons act on the stage at the same time are very different. The +princess is afraid lest she should incur the displeasure of the king +her father, or lose the hero, her lover, whilst her attendant is only +concerned lest she should entangle her feet in her petticoat." + +In a succeeding paragraph the reader finds that a cherished +nineteenth-century custom--the representing of a vast army by the +employment of half-a-dozen ill-fed, unpainted supers--has at least the +sanction of age: "Another mechanical method of making great men, and +adding dignity to kings and queens, is to accompany them with halberts +and battle-axes. Two or three shifters of scenes, with the two +candle-snuffers, make up a complete body of guards upon the English +stage; and by the addition of a few porters dressed in red coats, can +represent above a dozen legions. I have sometimes seen a couple of +armies drawn up together upon the stage, when the poet has been +disposed to do honour to his generals. It is impossible for the +reader's imagination to multiply twenty men into such prodigious +multitudes, or to fancy that two or three hundred thousand soldiers +are fighting in a room of forty or fifty yards in compass. Incidents +of such a nature should be told, not represented." + +Addison remarks that "the tailor and painter often contribute to the +success of a tragedy more than the poet," a trite saying which holds +good now, and he ends his essay with the belief that "a good poet +will give the reader a more lively idea of an army or a battle in a +description, than if he actually saw them drawn up in squadrons and +battalions, or engaged in the confusion of a fight. Our minds should +be open to great conceptions, and inflamed with glorious sentiments +by what the actor speaks, more than by what he appears. Can all the +trappings or equipage of a king or hero give Brutus half the pomp and +majesty which he receives from a few lines in Shakespeare?" Which is +all very true, yet "the tailor and painter" will continue popular, no +doubt, until the crack of doom. + +The month of December 1714 saw the reopening of the theatre in +Lincoln's Inn Fields, under letters patent originally granted by +Charles II. to Christopher Rich, and restored by his broken-English +Majesty George I. The renewal created a dangerous rival to Drury Lane, +but it is not probable that the king worried over having planted such +a thorn in the sides of Messrs. Steele, Booth, Wilks, and Cibber[A]. +He remembered, he told Mr. Craggs, "when he had been in England +before, in King Charles his time, there had been two theatres in +London; and as the patent seemed to be a lawful grant, he saw no +reason why two playhouses might not be continued." + +[Footnote A: On the death of Queen Anne the old licence or patent of +Drury Lane lapsed, and when the new one was issued Steele was named +therein as a partner.] Several useful players left Drury Lane to go +over into Lincoln's Inn Fields,[A] chief among them being Mrs. Rogers, +who felt greatly relieved in transferring her affectations of virtue +to a house where she would no longer be overshadowed by the genius +of Oldfield. As for Nance, she was faithful to the old theatre, +and continued to be the fairest though perhaps the frailest of its +pillars, notwithstanding the personal charms of Mrs. Horton. The +latter was a strolling player recently admitted to the sacred +precincts of Drury. She had been in the habit of "ranting tragedy in +barns and country towns, and playing Cupid in a booth, at suburban +fairs. The attention of managers was directed towards her; and Booth, +after seeing her act in Southwark, engaged her for Drury Lane, where +her presence was more agreeable to the public than particularly +pleasant to dear Mrs. Oldfield."[B] + +[Footnote A: 'Tis true, they none of them had more than a negative +merit, in being only able to do us more harm by their leaving us +without notice, than they could do us good by remaining with us: For +though the best of them could not support a play, the worst of them by +their absence could maim it; as the loss of the least pin in a watch +may obstruct its motion.--CIBBER.] + +[Footnote B: Dr. Doran's "Annals of the Stage."] + +So wagged the mimic world with Nance as its most attractive figure. +Sometimes she laughed her way through a play; and again she committed +suicide for the edification of the audience, as when she appeared in +"Busiris." This was a windy tragedy by Dr. Young (he of the "Night +Thoughts"), wherein Wilks, as Memnon, also had to kill himself. +The performance was, naturally enough, far from cheerful, and no +particular inspiration could have been obtained from the presence of +Busiris himself, that semi-savage Egyptian king to whom Ovid referred: + + "'Tis said that Egypt for nine years was dry; + Nor Nile did floods, nor heaven did rain supply. + A foreigner at length informed the King + That slaughtered guests would kindly moisture bring. + The King replied, 'On thee the lot shall fall; + Be thou, my guest, the sacrifice for all.'" + +Certainly a most ungenial host. + +There were times when Oldfield could even arouse enthusiasm amid the +dullest and most unappealing surroundings. This she did, for instance, +in the stupid "Sophonisba" of James Thomson, who could write +delightful poetry about nature without being able to carry any of that +nature into the art of play-making. It was in this artificial tragedy +that the famous line occurred: "Oh Sophonisba! Sophonisba, o!" which +was afterwards parodied by "Oh! Jemmy Thomson! Jemmy Thomson, oh!" +and it was in the same ill-fated compilation that Cibber had the +distinction of being hissed off the stage. The latter, unlike +Oldfield, had a sneaking fondness for tragedy, and when "Sophonisba" +was first read in the green room he appropriated to his own use the +dignified character of Scipio. His egotism and foolishness had their +full reward. For two nights successively, as Davies tells us, "Cibber +was as much exploded as any bad actor could be. Williams, by desire of +Wilks, made himself master of the part; but he, marching slowly, in +great military distinction, from the upper part of the stage, and +wearing the same dress as Cibber, was mistaken for him, and met +with repeated hisses, joined to the music of cat-calls [notice, ye +theatre-goers of 1898, that the cat-call is not the invention of the +modern gallery god]; but, as soon as the audience were undeceived, +they converted their groans and hisses to loud and long continued +applause." Three years later, in 1733, Cibber retired from the stage. + +With Mrs. Oldfield the picture was far different. She could not make +of Thomson's tragedy a success, yet she played Sophonisba (one of the +last parts in which she was ever seen) with a grandeur of effect that +well earned the undying gratitude of the author.[A] In after years her +old admirers were wont to thrill with pleasure as they recalled the +passionate intensity she gave to that much-quoted line, + + "Not one base word of Carthage, for thy soul," + +as she stood glaring at the astonished Massinissa. + +[Footnote A: Mrs. Oldfield, in the character of Sophonisba, has +excelled what, even in the fondness of an author, I could either wish +or imagine. The grace, dignity, and happy variety of her action have +been universally applauded, and are truly admirable.--Thomson.] + +Among those who saw Sophonisba was Chetwood, whose "General History of +the Stage" gives us many a charming glimpse of dead and gone actors. +Dead and gone? Nay, rather let it be said that they still live in the +ever fresh and graphic pages of contemporary critics, and thus refute +the gentle pessimism of Mr. Henley when he asks so gracefully: + + "Where are the passions they essayed, + And where the tears they made to flow? + Where the wild humours they portrayed + For laughing worlds to see and know? + Othello's wrath and Juliet's woe? + Sir Peter's whims and Timon's gall? + And Millamant and Romeo? + Into the night go one and all." + +"I was too young," says Chetwood, "to view her first dawn on the +stage, but yet had the infinite satisfaction of her meridian lustre, a +glow of charms not to be beheld but with a trembling eye! which held +her influence till set in night." + +Of Nance's tendency to escape tragic plays the same writer tells us: +"When 'Mithridates' was revived, it was with much difficulty she was +prevail'd upon to take the part; but she perform'd it to the utmost +length of perfection, and, after that, she seem'd much better +reconcil'd to tragedy. What a majestical dignity in Cleopatra! and, +indeed, in every part that required it: Such a finish'd figure on the +stage, was never yet seen. In 'Calista, the Fair Penitent,' she was +inimitable, in the third act, with Horatio, when she tears the letter +with + + "'To atoms, thus! + Thus let me tear the vile detested falsehood, + The wicked lying evidence of shame!' + +"Her excellent clear voice of passion, with manner and action suiting, +us'd to make me shrink with awe, and seem'd to put her monitor Horatio +into a mousehole. I almost gave him up for a troublesome puppy; and +though Mr. Booth play'd the part of Lothario, I could hardly lug him +up to the importance of triumphing over such a finish'd piece of +perfection, that seemed to be too much dignified to lose her virtue." + + * * * * * + +Perhaps the reader may think that this chapter, like several others, +is (as the theatre-goer said of "Hamlet") too "deuced full of +quotation." Yet what can give a better picture of old stage life than +these quaint and often eloquent records of the past? Pray be lenient, +therefore, thou kindly critic, if the most faded books of the +theatrical library are taken down from the dusty shelf, and a few of +the neglected pages are printed once again. As these very books seem +all the better in their dingy bindings, so do the old ideas, the odd +conceits, the stories that charmed dead generations, take on a keener +zest when clothed in the formal language of other days. + +If we want to get that formal language in all its glory, let us bring +from the library a copy of some early eighteenth-century tragedy. +Shall we close our eyes and choose one at random? Well, what have we? +The "Tamerlane" of our friend Nicholas Rowe, in which is set forth the +story of the generous Emperor of Tartary, the "very glass and fashion +of all conquerors." The play is prefaced by a fulsome "Epistle +Dedicatory," addressed to the sacred person of the "Right Honourable +William, Lord Marquis of Harrington," and showing, almost +pathetically, how frequently the literary workers of Queen Anne's +"golden age" were wont to beg the influence of some powerful patron. +The dedication seems absolutely grovelling when viewed from the +present standards, but Mr. Rowe and his friends saw therein nothing +more remarkable than respectful homage to one of the world's great +men. The republic of letters was then an empty name.[A] + +[Footnote A: "Tamerlane" was brought out in 1702, with Betterton in +the title rôle.] + +The author of "Tamerlane" fears that in thus calling attention to the +play he may appear guilty of "impertinence and interruptions," and, +he adds, "I am sure it is a reason why I ought to beg your Lordship's +pardon, for troubling you with this tragedy; not but that poetry has +always been, and will still be the entertainment of all wise men, that +have any delicacy in their knowledge." Then, after wasting a little +necessary flattery on the noble marquis, he starts off into an +unblushing eulogy of King William III., whose clemency was mirrored, +supposedly, by the hero of the tragedy. "Some people [who do me a very +great honour in it] have fancy'd, that in the person of Tamerlane, I +have alluded to the greatest character of the present age. I don't +know whether I ought not to apprehend a great deal of danger from +avowing a design like that: It may be a task indeed worthy of the +greatest genius, which this or any other time has produc'd; but +therefore I ought not to stand the shock of a parallel lest it should +be seen, to my disadvantage, how far the _Hero has transcended the +poet's thoughts_"--and so on, _ad nauseam_. + +To turn the leaves of the play, after wading through the slime of the +"Epistle," is to find amusing proof of the high-flown and at times +bombastic expression which elicited such admiration from audiences of +the old _régime_. (Do not laugh at it, reader; you tolerate an equal +amount of absurdity in modern melodrama). The very first lines are +charmingly suggestive of the starched and stately past. "Hail to the +sun!" says the Prince of Tanais: + + "Hail to the sun! from whose returning light + The cheerful soldier's arms new lustre take + To deck the pomp of battle." + +Playwrights of Rowe's cult loved to hail the sun. Just why the orb +of day had to be saluted with such frequency no one seemed able to +determine, but the honour was continually bestowed, to the great +edification of the groundlings. When Young wrote "Busiris," he paid +so much attention to old Sol that Fielding burlesqued the learned +doctor's weakness through the medium of "Tom Thumb," and wrote that +"the author of 'Busiris' is extremely anxious to prevent the sun's +blushing at any indecent object; and, therefore, on all such +occasions, he addresses himself to the sun, and desires him to keep +out of the way." + +After the Prince of Tanais's homage to the sun we hear something +fulsome about the virtues of King William, alias Tamerlane: + + "No lust of rule, the common vice of Kings, + No furious zeal, inspir'd by hot-brain'd priests, + Ill hid beneath religion's specious name, + E'er drew his temp'rate courage to the field: + But to redress an injur'd people's wrongs, + To save the weak one from the strong oppressor, + Is all his end of war. And when he draws + The sword to punish, like relenting Heav'n, + He seems unwilling to deface his kind." + +A few lines later and we find one of the characters drawing a parallel +between Tamerlane, otherwise William, and Divinity: + + "Ere the mid-hour of night, from tent to tent, + Unweary'd, thro' the num'rous host he past, + Viewing with careful eyes each several quarters; + Whilst from his looks, as from Divinity, + The soldiers took presage, and cry'd, Lead on, + Great Alha, and our emperor, lead on, + To victory, and everlasting fame." + +How changeth the spirit of each age! Imagine Bronson Howard or +Augustus Thomas writing a play wherein the President of the United +States was brought into such irreverent contact with the Deity.[A] + +[Footnote A: Yet it cannot be easily forgotten that a certain +clergyman, preaching, several years ago, at the funeral of a rich +man's son, compared the poor boy to Christ. And this very ecclesiastic +probably looks upon the stage as a monument of sacrilegiousness.] + +But we need not follow the platitudes of Tamerlane and his companions, +nor weep at the sententious wickedness of Bajazet, that ungrateful +sovereign typifying Louis Quatorze, King of France, Prince of +Gentlemen, and Right Royal Hater of His Protestant Majesty William of +Orange. Heaven rest their souls! and with that pious prayer we may bid +them farewell, as + + "Into the night go one and all." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +NANCE AT HOME + + +"Home?" An actress at home? Does it not seem strange to apply the dear +old English noun, so redolent of peace, and quiet, and privacy, to +the feverish life of a mummer? We go, night after night, to see our +favourite players shining 'mid the fierce glare of the footlights, +watch them approvingly as they pass from rôle to rôle, and finally +begin to believe, like the egotists we are, that they have no +existence apart from the one we are pleased to applaud. What fools +some of us must be to think there is never a time when the paint and +powder, the tinsel and eternal artifice of the stage--yea, even our +own condescending admiration--pall on the jaded spirits of the poor +player. + +"How sparklingly is Miss Smith acting Lady Teazle to-night!" we say, +elegantly pressing our hands together in token of august favour. We +are entranced, and it follows, therefore, that the actress must be +entranced likewise. Mayhap Miss Smith does not share the same ecstacy; +perhaps, as she stands behind the screen in Joseph Surface's rooms, +Sir Peter's wife is wishing that the comedy were ended and she were +comfortably ensconced in her cosy little lodgings round the corner. +She pictures that crackling wood fire, and her old terrier basking +in the gentle heat, and the tea-urn hissing near by (or is it a cold +bottle of beer in the portable refrigerator?) and in the background +sweet good Mr. Smith, who does nothing but spend his lady's salary. +In that temple of domesticity there are no thoughts of rouge, or +paint-pots, or of Richard Brinsley Sheridan--it is merely home. Dost +thou always hurry back to so attractive a one, thou patronising +theatre-goer? + +Our Nance had a home to which she was glad enough to hurry back, like +the aforesaid Miss Smith, after the play was over at Drury Lane. There +was no husband there to await her, but a very devoted knight in the +person of Mr. Arthur Maynwaring, who, though he gave not his name nor +the ceremony of bell, book, and candle to the union, played the part +of spouse to the fair charmer. The town looked with good-natured +tolerance on the moral code, or the want thereof, of the frail one, +just as other towns, in later days, have looked with equal benevolence +upon the peccadillos of some petted favourite. The times were not of +the straightlaced order and no one expected from an actress wonders +of chastity or conventionality. Are we ourselves exacting where the +Thespian is concerned? + +[Illustration: ANNE OLDFIELD + +By JONATHAN RICHARDSON] + + Fashion'd alike by Nature and by Art + To please, engage, and interest ev'ry heart. + In public life, by all who saw, approv'd; + In private life, by all who knew her, lov'd. + +"Even her amours," says Chetwood in treating of Mistress Oldfield, +"seemed to lose that glare which appears round the persons of the +failing fair; neither was it ever known that she troubled the repose +of any lady's lawful claim; and was far more constant than millions in +the conjugal noose." Being thus acquitted of predatory designs +upon the peace of English wives, and having the further virtue of +constancy, a host of Londoners, men and women, high and low alike, +gazed with charitable eyes upon Nance's private life. And she, dear +girl, sinned on joyously. + +Mr. Maynwaring, who helped Oldfield to break the spirit of one +commandment, was a brilliant figure in the reign of Queen Anne, +albeit, like other brilliant figures of that period, he has passed +into the darkness of oblivion. A clever dabbler in literature, an +honest politician--a politician with scruples was as rare in those +days as he is now--and a man of honour who could drink as much as his +friends, the volatile Arthur was, perhaps, best known as the most +attractive talker of the famous Kit-Cat Club. The Kit-Cat Club! What +a wealth of anecdote doth its name conjure up to the student of the +past! 'Twas in this famous organisation that noblemen and wits met on +common ground, drank many a toast to the House of Hanover or to some +reigning belle of London town, and exercised a patronising censorship +over the world of letters. They were "the patriots that saved Briton," +says Horace Walpole, in referring to their anti-Jacobitism, and yet +the most of them are forgotten. + +If tradition is to be believed (and what siren is more comfortable to +hearken unto than tradition?) these self-same patriots took their name +of "Kit-Cats" from prosaic mutton pies. 'Twould be horrible to think +on this gastronomic derivation of the title were we not to remember, +quite fortunately, that geese saved classic Rome. Why, therefore, +should not the preservers of perfidious Albion suggest the aroma of a +lamb pasty? + +It seems that the Club had its first headquarters in Shire Lane, near +Temple Bar, at the establishment of Christopher Cat, a pastrycook +who helped to enliven the inner man by delicious meat pies dubbed +"Kit-Cats." Hence the name of that notable coterie of Whigs which +included Addison and Dick Steele, Congreve and His Grace of +Devonshire.[A] + +[Footnote A: Our modern celebrated clubs are founded upon eating and +drinking, which are points wherein most men agree, and in which the +learned and illiterate, the dull and the airy, the philosopher and the +buffoon, can all of them bear a part. The Kit-Cat itself is said to +have taken its original from a mutton pie. The Beef-Steak and October +clubs are neither of them averse to eating and drinking, if we may +form a judgment of them from their respective titles.--ADDISON in the +_Spectator_.] + +Maynwaring came of good English stock, and in early life showed the +results of his relationship to the aristocratic house of Cholmondeley +by supporting the lost cause of James II. So fervent an admirer was he +of that apology for royalty that he took up the pen, if not the sword, +in his behalf, and steeped the mightier weapon with satirical ink when +he wrote a pamphlet entitled "The King of Hearts." Rumour paid to +the young author an unintentional compliment by insisting that the +brochure came from the great Mr. Dryden, but that genius denied the +soft impeachment while gracefully praising the unknown writer. + +This pursuit of Jacobitism was varied by the study of law--a study +"sometimes relieved with a temporary application to music and +poetry"--and when the disconsolate Arthur had lost his father, and +thereby gained 800 pounds a year, he drowned his sorrows by an almost +exclusive devotion to "society and pleasantry." We are told[A] that on +the ratification of the Peace of Ryswick he went to Paris, where +he was exceedingly well received in consequence of the numerous +introductory letters which had been furnished him from various +quarters. He there contracted an intimacy with Boileau,-- + + "Whose rash envy would allow + No strain that shamed his country's creaking lyre, + That whetstone of the teeth, monotony in wire." + +[Footnote A: "Memoirs of the Celebrated Persons comprising the Kit-Cat +Club."] + +"The French poet invited Maynwaring to his country seat, where he +behaved to him in a very hospitable manner, and frequently conversed +with him respecting the merits of our English poets, of whom, however, +he affected to know but little, and for whom he pretended to care +still less. Monsieur de la Fontaine was also at times one of their +company, and always spoke in very respectful terms of the poetry of +the sister nation. Boileau's pretending to be ignorant of Dryden +'argued himself unknown'; but, perhaps, another reason may be assigned +why the French writers found it convenient to know as little as +possible of their English contemporary, who in many of his admirable +prefaces and dedications has taken some trouble to explain the +frivolity of the French poets, their tiresome _petit maître-ship_, and +all the finessing and trick with which they endeavour to make amends +to their readers for positive deficiency of genius." + +After playing the _dilettante_ in France, Maynwaring returned home, +and in time became a staunch Whig, a Government official, and, later +on, a Member of Parliament. The cause of the Pretender knew him no +more, and in future this brilliant gentleman would be one of the +greatest friends of that stupid Hanoverian family which waited +drowsily, across the sea, for the death of Anne. + +But what counted all the glamour of public life compared to the +possession of Nance Oldfield and an honoured seat at the festive board +of the Kit-Cat Club? Love and conviviality, youth and wit, carried the +day, and through the influence of these seductive companions handsome +Arthur failed to achieve greatness as a statesman. But when it came +to waging political warfare against sour Swift, or to assisting Dick +Steele with the "Tatler," or--better still--toasting some fair one at +the Club,[A] this _bon viveur_ was in his finest mood. + +[Footnote A: The (Kit-Cat) club originated in the hospitality of Jacob +Tonson, the bookseller, who, once a week, was host at the house in +Shire Lane to a gathering of writers. In an occasional poem on the +Kit-Cat club, attributed to Sir Richard Blackmore, Jacob is read +backwards into Bocaj, and we are told: + + "One Night in Seven at this convenient seat + Indulgent Bocaj did the Muses treat; + Their Drink was gen'rous Wine and Kit-Cat's Pyes their Meat. + Hence did th' Assembly's Title first arise, + And Kit-Cat Wits spring first from Kit-Cat's Pyes." + +About the year 1700 this gathering of wits produced a club in which +the great Whig chiefs were associated with foremost Whig writers, +Tonson being secretary. It was as much literary as political, and its +"toasting glasses," each inscribed with lines to a reigning beauty, +caused Arbuthnot to derive its value from "its pell mell pack of +toasts." + + Of old Cats and young Kits. + +Tonson built a room for the Club at Barn Elms to which each member +gave his portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller, who was himself a member. +The pictures were on a new-sized canvas adopted to the height of the +walls, whence the name "Kit-Cat" came to be applied generally +to three-quarter length portraits.--HENRY MORLEY'S Notes on the +_Spectator_.] + +It is to be supposed that at some time or other the health of Mistress +Oldfield was drunk by the Kit-Cats, whose custom of honouring +womankind in this bibulous way may have given rise to Pope's plaintive +query: + + "Say why are beauties prais'd and honoured most, + The wise man's passion, and the vain man's toast? + Why deck'd with all that land and sea afford, + Why Angels call'd, and angel-like adored?" + +And if the actress was thus deified or spiritualised, who drained his +glass more fervently than did Arthur Maynwaring? For whatever may have +been the faults of this dashing Whig, he had the courage of his sins, +and took up his abode with Anne in the full light of day, as though +a marriage ceremony were a bagatelle not worth the recollecting. The +world was forgiving, to be sure, nor is it probable that either one +of this easily-mated pair suffered any loss of public esteem by the +union. Dukes--nay, even Duchesses--were glad to meet Nance, and +Royalty allowed her to bask in the sunshine of its gracious approval. +"She was to be seen on the terrace at Windsor, walking with the +consorts of dukes, and with countesses, and wives of English barons, +and the whole gay group might be heard calling one another by their +Christian names." + +No wonder that the women of fashion, none of them saints, loved +Oldfield and winked at the elasticity of her moral ethics. The dear +creature was so bright in conversation, so full of _espièglerie_, and, +still more important, she looked so charming in her succession of +handsome toilettes, that she could be ever sure of a cordial welcome. +"Flavia," as Steele calls her, "is ever well-dressed, and always +the genteelest woman you meet, but the make of her mind very much +contributes to the ornament of her body. She has the greatest +simplicity of manners of any of her sex. This makes everything look +native about her, and her clothes are so exactly fitted, that they +appear, as it were, part of her person. Every one that sees her knows +her to be of quality; but her distinction is owing to her manner, +and not to her habit. Her beauty is full of attraction, but not of +allurement. There is such a composure in her looks, and propriety in +her dress, that you would think it impossible she should change the +garb you one day see her in, for anything so becoming until you next +day see her in another. There is no mystery in this, but that however +she is apparelled, she is herself the same: for there is so immediate +a relation between our thoughts and gestures that a woman must think +well to look well." + + * * * * * + +Here, verily, was an actress who could set the town wild by the beauty +and exquisite taste of her costumes, and who was conscientious enough, +nevertheless, to keep the millinery phase of her art modestly in the +background. You, ladies, who depend for theatrical success upon the +elegance of your gowns, and fondly believe that fairness of face and +litheness of figure will atone for a thousand dramatic sins, take +pattern by the industry of Oldfield. It will be a much better pattern +than those over which you are accustomed to worry your pretty heads. +The enterprising dressmakers who go to the play to get inspiration for +new clothes may cease to worship you, but think of the other sort of +inspiration which you will give to lovers of the drama! Then shall +there be no more announcements to the effect that, "Miss Lighthead +will act Lady Macbeth in ten Parisian gowns made by Worth," or that +when she treats us to the death of Marguerite Gautier (the aforesaid +Mdlle. Gautier dying, as everybody knows, in actual poverty) "Miss +Lighthead will wear diamonds representing one hundred thousand +dollars." + +There is not much to say about the domesticity of Nance and Arthur +Maynwaring. How could there be? The lady kept house for her lord and +master with grace and modesty (if it seems not paradoxical to mention +modesty in this alliance), and it is safe to believe that more than +one member of the Kit-Cat Club often tasted a bit of beef and pudding, +and sipped a glass of port, at the table of the happy pair. Congreve, +the particular friend and _protégé_ of the host, must have dined more +than once with brilliant Nance, regaling his plump being with the joy +of food and drink, and wondering, perhaps, how any one could prefer +the hostess to his particular _chère-amie_, Anne Bracegirdle. And +Oldfield, of what did she think as she gazed into the rounded face of +Mr. Congreve, or listened to the merry wit of her devoted liege? Did +the ghost of poor, dead Farquhar ever arise before her, the reminder +of a day when love was younger and passion stronger? Let us ask no +impertinent questions. + +What with acting, and supping, and an easy conscience, Mistress +Oldfield gaily trod the primrose path of dalliance, and Cupid hovered +near, albeit there was no law to chain him to the scene. But one day +he took to his wings and flew away, after witnessing the untimely +death (November 1712) of Mr. Maynwaring. The latter made his exit with +the assistance of three physicians, and Nance was near to smooth the +departure.[A] Then came the funeral, and after that Mrs. Mayn--Mrs. +Oldfield dried her lovely eyes (did she not have enough weeping to do +when she played in tragedy?), and began once more to think upon the +joys of existence. + +[Footnote A: He died at St. Albans, November 13, 1712, of a +consumption, and was attended in his last illness by Doctors Garth, +Radcliffe and Blackmore. In his will he appointed Mrs. Oldfield, the +celebrated actress, his executrix, with whom he had lived for several +years, and by whom he had a son, named Arthur Maynwaring. His +estate was equally divided between this child, its mother and his +sister.--"Memoirs of the Celebrated Persons Comprising the Kit-Kat +Club."] + +When General Churchill, a nephew of the great Duke of Marlborough, +suggested to the disconsolate widow-by-brevet that she should share +his home, the proposal was accepted, and the actress entered for +a second time into a free-and-easy compact, and for a second time +remained faithful thereto until her new admirer went the way of Mr. +Maynwaring. It was even rumoured--scandalous gossip!--that the two +were married; and one day the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen +Caroline, asked the "incomparable sweet girl," who was attending a +royal levee, whether such were indeed the case. "So it is said, may +it please your Royal Highness," diplomatically replied Nance, "but we +have not owned it yet." + +To Churchill our unsteady heroine presented one son, and it was +through the marriage of the latter that the swift-running blood of +Oldfield now courses through the veins of the first Earl of Cadogan's +descendants.[A] This son and the one who bore the name of Maynwaring +were the only two children credited, or discredited, to the actress, +but there appears to have been a mysterious daughter, a Miss Dye +Bertie, who became, as Mrs. Delany tells us, "the pink of fashion +in the _beau monde_, and married a nobleman." It would not be wise, +however, to peer too closely into the dim vista of the past. The +picture might prove unpleasant. + +[Footnote A: Her son, Colonel Churchill, once, unconsciously, saved +Sir Robert Walpole from assassination, through the latter riding home +from the House in the Colonel's chariot instead of alone in his own. +Unstable Churchill married a natural daughter of Sir Robert, and +their daughter Mary married, in 1777, Charles Sloane, first Earl of +Cadogan.... When Churchill and his wife were travelling in France, a +Frenchman, knowing he was connected with poets or players, asked him +if he was Churchill the famous poet. "I am not," said Mrs. Oldfield's +son. "Ma foi!" rejoined the polite Frenchman, "so much the worse for +you."--DR. DORAN.] + +Surely we may have charity for Oldfield, when she dispensed the same +virtue to those around her. Towards none did she show it more sweetly +than to that disreputable fraud and alleged man of genius, Richard +Savage. In his own feverish day Dick Savage cut a literary swath more +wide than enviable, but when he is viewed from the unsympathetic light +of the present he seems merely a clever vagabond. Yet Dr. Johnson, who +could be so stern towards some of his contemporaries, condescended +to love the aforesaid vagabond, in a ponderous, elephantine way, +and deified him by writing the life of the ingrate, or an apology +therefor. Savage had, once upon a time, led the youthful Johnson more +than a few feet away from the path of rectitude, but the philosopher +forgave, without forgetting, the wiles of the tempter, and treated +him with a generosity by no means deserved. In the years of his +prosperity--and the remembrance did him credit--Johnson could never +forget that Savage and himself had been poor together, and had often +wandered through London with hardly a penny to show between them. + + * * * * * + +"It is melancholy to reflect," says Boswell, "that Johnson and Savage +were sometimes in such extreme indigence that they could not pay for +a lodging; so that they have wandered together whole nights in the +streets. Yet in these almost incredible scenes of distress, we may +suppose that Savage mentioned many of the anecdotes with which Johnson +afterwards enriched the life of this unhappy companion, and those of +other poets. + +"He told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that one night in particular, when +Savage and he walked round St. James's Square for want of a lodging, +they were not at all depressed by their situation; but in high spirits +and brimful of patriotism, traversed the square for several hours, +inveighed against the Minister, and resolved they would _stand by +their country_." + + * * * * * + +The claim of Savage that he was the illegitimate son of the Countess +of Macclesfield--a claim which he was always asserting to the point of +coarseness--seems to have been the stock-in-trade of this vagabond's +life. There never was proof that the relationship which he thus +flaunted really existed; for, although the conduct of the Countess[A] +was unpardonable, the poet could never show that he had been the +mysterious infant which had this lady for its mother and Lord Rivers +for an unnatural father. The child disappeared, and nothing more was +ever known of its existence. + +[Footnote A: Anne Mason, wife of Charles Gerrard, first Earl of +Macclesfield, was divorced from that nobleman by an Act of Parliament. +Another earl, Richard Savage, Lord Rivers, was the co-respondent. +This was the same Countess of Macclesfield who subsequently married +Cibber's friend, Colonel Brett.] + +But Savage discovered, or affected to discover, that he was the +missing one, and from that moment made the Countess miserable by his +importunities for recognition and money, more particularly for +the latter. "It was to no purpose," records Dr. Johnson, "that he +frequently solicited her to admit him to see her; she avoided him with +the most vigilant precaution, and ordered him to be excluded from her +house, by whomsoever he might be introduced, and what reason soever he +might give for entering it." And the Doctor, who had an abiding and +very misplaced confidence in the fellow, adds plaintively: "Savage was +at the same time so touched with the discovery of his real mother that +it was his frequent practice to walk in the dark evenings for several +hours before her door in hopes of seeing her as she might come by +accident to the window, or cross her apartment with a candle in her +hand." + +"Touched with the discovery," forsooth! 'Twas a species of blackmail +cloaked in the guise of filial sentiment. + +This talented blackguard was wont to pray for alms from Mistress +Oldfield; and that dear charitable creature (are not most actresses +dear, charitable creatures?) would often waste her practical sympathy +upon him. She despised the man, but, with that generosity so +characteristic of her craft, was ever ready to relieve his +necessities.[A] Well, well, how the glitter from a few guineas can +envelop the fragile doner in a golden light, and throw over her faults +the soft glow of forgiveness. + +[Footnote A: In this (Johnson's) "Life of Savage" 'tis related that +Mrs. Oldfield was very fond of Mr. Savage's conversation, and allowed +him an annuity during her life of £50. These facts are equally +ill-grounded; there was no foundation for them. That Savage's +misfortunes pleaded for pity, and had the desired effect on Mrs. +Oldfield's compassion, is certain; but she so much disliked the man, +and disapproved his conduct, that she never admitted him to her +conversation, nor suffered him to enter her house. She indeed often +relieved him with such donations as spoke her generous disposition. +But this was on the solicitation of friends, who frequently set his +calamities before her in the most piteous light; and, from a principle +of humanity, she became not a little instrumental in saving his +life.--CIBBER'S "Lives of the Poets."] + +Savage himself once turned player, and no one must have been more +amused thereat than the Oldfield. It happened during the summer of +1723, when the poet, who was in his customary state of (theatrical) +destitution, determined to replenish his shabby purse by bringing out +a tragedy. While this play, "The Tragedy of Sir Thomas Overbury,"[A] +was in rehearsal at Drury Lane, Colley Cibber kept the author in +clothes, and the Laureate's son Theophilus, then a very young man, +studied the part of Somerset. The principal actors were not in London +just then, it being the off season, when the younger players strutted +across the classic boards of the house, and Savage determined himself +to enact Sir Thomas. He did so with melancholy results; even Johnson +admits the failure of so presumptuous a leap before the footlights, +"for neither his voice, look, nor gesture were such as were expected +on the stage; and he was so much ashamed of having been reduced to +appear as a player, that he always blotted out his name from the list +when a copy of his tragedy was to be shown to his friends."[B] + +[Footnote A: Savage, with his usual bad taste, published this tragedy +as the work of "Richard Savage, _son of the late Earl Rivers_."] + +[Footnote B: In the publication of his performance he was more +successful, for the rays of genius that glimmered in it, that +glimmered through all the mists which poverty and Cibber had been able +to spread over it, procured him the notice and esteem of many persons +eminent for their rank, their virtue, and their wit. Of this play, +acted, printed, and dedicated, the accumulated profits arose to an +hundred pounds, which he thought at that time a very large sum, having +been never master of so much before. In the "Dedication," for which +he received ten guineas, there is nothing remarkable. The preface +contains a very liberal enconium on the blooming excellence of Mr. +Theophilus Cibber, which Mr. Savage could not in the latter part of +his life see his friends about to read without snatching the play out +of their hands.--DR. JOHNSON.] + +What a sublime hypocrite our Richard was, to be sure. That he felt so +keenly the disgrace (?) of "having been reduced to appear as a player" +was, no doubt, a sentiment intended for the exclusive ear of the great +lexicographer, whose prejudice against the stage and its followers was +strong to the point of absurdity. Despite the qualms of the poet +over exposing his sacred self to the gaze of an audience he had no +sensitiveness in receiving the money of an actress, and he was willing +enough to have her aid in another direction. + +That aid was cheerfully given once upon a time when Savage came +dangerously near the scaffold. This prince of scamps and wanderer +among the beery precincts of pot-houses happened to stroll one night, +accompanied by two choice spirits (and himself full of spirits) into +a disreputable coffee-house near Charing Cross. The three men rudely +pushed their way into a parlour where some other roisterers were +drinking; the intrusion was naturally resented, and as each and every +one of the party chanced to be better filled with wine than with +politeness, a brawl was the consequence. Swords were drawn and Savage +killed a Mr. Sinclair, after which drunken act he cut the head of +a barmaid who tried to hold him. Then more swearing, shrieking and +sword-thrusting, a cry for soldiers, a flight from the coffee-house, +and an almost instant arrest. A pretty picture, was it not? + +When Savage was put on trial for his life, he pleaded that the killing +of Sinclair was done in self-defence, and his acquittal would probably +have followed but for the shrewdness of the prosecution. This +prosecution was conducted by Francis Page, whose severity Pope +immortalised in the lines: + + "Slander or poison dread from Delia's rage + Hard-words or hanging--if your judge be Page." + +Page surely understood human nature, or that portion of it +appertaining to the average jurymen, and he disposed of Mr. Savage's +defence by one well-directed blow when he said to the good men and +true: "Gentlemen of the jury, you are to consider that Mr. Savage is +a very great man, a much greater man than you or I, gentlemen of the +jury; that he wears very fine clothes, much finer clothes than you +or I, gentlemen of the jury; that he has abundance of money in his +pocket, much more money than you or I, gentlemen of the jury; but, +gentlemen of the jury, is it not a very hard case, gentlemen of the +jury, that Mr. Savage should therefore kill you, or me, gentlemen of +the jury." + +Whereupon the defendant began to make a speech in his own behalf, but +his flow of eloquence was quenched by the judge, and the jury soon +found Savage as well as Gregory, one of his companions in the drunken +broil, to be guilty of murder. Many influences were now brought to +bear on Queen Caroline, consort of George II., to secure a pardon for +the rascal, but that good lady was for a time obdurate. She had heard +a few choice stories anent the man, and among them, one which Dr. +Johnson glosses over in this way: "Mr. Savage, when he had discovered +his birth, had an incessant desire to speak to his mother, who always +avoided him in public, and refused him admission into her house. +One evening walking, as it was his custom, in the street that she +inhabited, he saw the door of her house by accident open, he entered +it, and, finding no person in the passage to hinder him, went upstairs +to salute her. She discovered him before he entered her chamber, +alarmed the family with the most distressful outcries, and when she +had by her screams gathered them about her, ordered them to drive +out of the house that villain who had forced himself in upon her and +endeavoured to murder her. Savage, who had attempted with the most +submissive tenderness to soften her rage, hearing her utter so +detestable an accusation, thought it prudent to retire." + +Thus the Queen refused to interfere until the Countess of Hertford +pleaded the cause of the imprisoned poet. In the meantime Mistress +Oldfield interceded with the mighty Robert Walpole, and the result of +all this wire-pulling was that Savage received the king's pardon,[A] +being thus left free to continue the persecution of his alleged +mother, to beg from friends and strangers alike, and to follow a +mode of life which scandalised even his kindly biographer. And when +Oldfield, the latchets of whose shoes he was not worthy to tie, played +her last part and passed away from the earthly stage, Richard wore +mourning for her, as for a mother, "but did not celebrate her in +elegies;[B] because he knew that too great profusion of praise would +only have revived those faults which his natural equity did not allow +him to think less because they were committed by one who favoured him; +but of which, though his virtue would not endeavour to palliate them, +his gratitude would not suffer him to prolong the memory or diffuse +the censure." + +[Footnote A: March 1728. It is cheerful to know that Mr. Gregory also +escaped hanging. It was contended during the trial, and afterwards, +that the testimony against both these defendants was more damning than +the facts warranted.] + +[Footnote B: Nevertheless Savage did write a poem in Oldfield's +honour, although he did not sign his virtuous name thereto. The verses +are quoted by Chetwood. _Vide_ Chapter XI.] + +Poor, crusty Samuel! what rot you could write now and then, and how +you did hate players and their craft. But may not the bewildered +reader ask how the aphorisms of the doctor and the disreputable +affairs of Savage concern that home life of Nance to which the +chapter is presumably consecrated? In answer the writer can only cry +"Peccavi," and, having done so, will sin boldly again by giving one +more anecdote. The story concerns Savage, but Steele is the hero of +it, and as winsome Dick is always welcome, we may take leave of the +other Dick in a pleasant way. + +Savage was once desired by Sir Richard (says Johnson), with an air +of the utmost importance, to come very early to his house the next +morning. Mr. Savage came as he had promised, found the chariot at the +door, and Sir Richard waiting for him and ready to go out. What was +intended, and whither they were to go, Savage could not conjecture, +and was not willing to inquire; but immediately seated himself with +Sir Richard. The coachman was ordered to drive, and they hurried with +the utmost expedition to Hyde Park Corner, where they stopped at a +petty tavern and retired to a private room. Sir Richard then informed +him that he intended to publish a pamphlet, and that he had desired +him to come thither that he might write for him. He soon sat down to +the work. Sir Richard dictated, and Savage wrote, till the dinner that +had been ordered was put upon the table. Savage was surprised at the +meanness of the entertainment, and after some hesitation ventured to +ask for wine, which Sir Richard, not without reluctance, ordered to +be brought. They then finished their dinner, and proceeded in their +pamphlet, which they concluded in the afternoon. + +Mr. Savage then imagined his task over, and expected that Sir Richard +would call for the reckoning and return home; but his expectations +deceived him, for Sir Richard told him that he was without money, and +that the pamphlet must be sold before the dinner could be paid for; +and Savage was therefore obliged to go and offer their new production +to sale for two guineas, which with some difficulty he obtained. Sir +Richard then returned home, having retired that day only to avoid his +creditors, and composed the pamphlet only to discharge his reckoning. + +Savage also told Johnson another merry tale of careless Dick. "Sir +Richard Steele having one day invited to his house a great number of +persons of the first quality, they were surprised at the number of +liveries which surrounded the table; and after dinner, when wine and +mirth had set them free from the observation of a rigid ceremony, +one of them inquired of Sir Richard how such an expensive train of +domestics could be consistent with his fortune. Sir Richard very +frankly confessed that they were fellows of whom he would very +willingly be rid. And being then asked why he did not discharge them, +declared that they were bailiffs, who had introduced themselves with +an execution, and whom, since he could not send them away, he had +thought it convenient to embellish with liveries, that they might +do him credit while they stayed. His friends were diverted with the +expedient, and by paying the debt discharged their attendants, having +obliged Sir Richard to promise that they should never again find him +graced with a retinue of the same kind." + + +These little pleasantries are echoes of the halcyon days when Steele +thought Savage a very fine fellow, made him an allowance and even +proposed to become the poet's father-in-law. But the recipient of all +this favour was caddish enough to ridicule his patron, a kind friend +mentioned the fact to Sir Richard, and the knight shut his doors on +the ingrate. Let us, likewise, give the fellow his _congé_. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE MIMIC WORLD + + +We have seen that Oldfield affected to despise tragedy, and was wont +to suggest Mistress Porter as a lady better suited than herself to the +purposes of train-bearing. And as the present chapter will be devoted +to a few of Nance's contemporaries let us linger, if only for an +instant, over the imposing memory of one whom cynical Horace Walpole +thought even finer than Garrick in certain scenes of passion. This +"ornament to human nature," as a biographer warmly called the Porter, +played her first childish part in a Lord Mayor's pageant during +the reign of James II., appearing as the Genius of Britain, and +incidentally falling under the august notice of another genius of +Britain, the great Mr. Betterton. That worthy man regarded the little +girl with prophetic eyes, saw in her a wealth of undeveloped talent, +and was soon instructing the chit in the mysteries of dramatic art. +Sometimes the actress-in-miniature revolted, poor mite ("she should +have been in the nursery, the minx," says some practical reader) and +then noble Thomas would give vent to an awful threat. She must speak +and act as she was directed, or else--horrible thought--the child +should be thrown into the basket of an orange-girl and buried under +one of the vine leaves which hid the luscious fruit! And with +that punishment hanging over her, the novice went on learning and +originating, until one day London woke up to find a new tragedienne +within its boundaries. + +[Illustration: Mr. Mills, Mrs. Porter, Mr. Cibber.] + +'Twas a tragedienne, be it added, who possessed no wonderful charm +of person. She was pleasing in figure and bearing, but her voice was +naturally harsh, her features did not shine forth loveliness, and when +the scene wherein she walked called neither for vehemence of feeling, +nor melting tenderness, her elocution became a monotonous cadence.[A] +Yet in moments of dramatic excitement, or in places where the deep +note of pathos had to be sounded, Porter played with a distinction +that either thrilled the spectator or reduced him to the verge of +tears. She threw cadence and monotony to the four winds of heaven, +or rather to the four corners of the stage, and spoke with the +earnestness of one inspired. + +[Footnote A: Mrs. Porter was tall, fair, well-shaped, and easy and +dignified in action. But she was not handsome, and her voice had a +small degree of tremor. Moreover, she imitated, or, rather, faultily +exceeded, Mrs. Barry in the habit of prolonging and toning her +pronunciation, sometimes to a degree verging upon a chant; but +whether it was that the public ear was at that period accustomed to a +demi-chant, or that she threw off the defect in the heat of passion, +it is certain that her general judgment and genius, in the highest +bursts of tragedy, inspired enthusiasm in all around her, and that +she was thought to be alike mistress of the terrible and the +tender.--THOMAS CAMPBELL.] + +As Queen Catherine Mrs. Porter was all mournful grace and dignity, as +Lady Macbeth she breathed of battle, murder and sudden death, and in +the rôle of Belvidera she showed yet another phase of her incomparable +art. "I remember Mrs. Porter, to whom nature had been so niggard in +voice and face, so great in many parts, as Lady Macbeth, Alicia in +'Jane Shore,' Hermione in the 'Distressed Mother,' and many parts of +the kind, that her great action, eloquence of look and gesture, moved +astonishment; and yet I have heard her declare she left the action +to the possession of the sentiments in the part she performed." Thus +wrote Chetwood, whose good fortune it was to see Oldfield, and Porter, +and a host of other famous players, not forgetting, in later days, the +wonderful Garrick himself. + +Unlike several of her ilk, Mistress Porter could play the heroine off +the stage as well as on. She lived at Heywoodhill, near Hendon, and +used to wend her way homeward every night, at the conclusion of the +play, in a one-horse chaise. The roads were dangerous, and highwaymen +lurked in the neighbourhood, but the actress put her faith in +Providence--and a brace of pistols which she always carried. The +pistols came very nicely to her rescue one evening when a robber +waylaid the chaise and put to the traveller the conventional question +as to whether she most valued her money or her life. Nothing daunted +by the impertinence of this ethical query, Mrs. Porter pointed one of +the weapons at the intruder, and he, so goes the story, gracefully +surrendered, for the reason that he was himself without firearms. The +man made the best of the situation, however, by assuring the occupant +of the vehicle that he was "no common thief," and had been driven to +his present course by the wants of a starving family. He told her, +at the same time, where he lived, and urged his distresses with such +earnestness, that she spared him all the money in her purse, which was +about ten guineas.[A] + +[Footnote A: Bellchambers' "Memoirs." This episode happened in the +summer of 1731.] + +Thereupon the highwayman departed, and Mrs. Porter whipped up her +horse. In her excitement she must have used the lash too freely, for +the animal started to run, the chaise was overturned, and the actress +dislocated her thigh bone. When she had in part recovered from the +accident, the victim made up a purse of sixty pounds, subscribed +among her friends, and sent it to the poverty-stricken family of the +desperado. How Nance would have laughed at the story had she been at +the theatre to hear it told. But there was no more merriment for +this daughter of smiles; she was lying cold and still amid the stony +grandeur of Westminster Abbey. + +Poor Porter outlived Oldfield for more than thirty years and, having +also outlived an annuity settled upon herself, spent her declining +days in what polite writers call straightened circumstances. One of +the closing scenes of her career shows us a meeting between this +veteran of the stage and Dr. Johnson, who could allow his kindness +of heart and sense of generosity to overcome his hatred of things +theatrical. It is easy to imagine the whole interview: the shrunken +face of the Porter beaming all over with an appreciation of the honour +paid her, and the Doctor full of benevolence and patronising courtesy, +even to the extent of drinking cheap tea without a grumble. After the +philosopher takes his leave he will likewise take with him a vivid +memory of the beldam's many wrinkles--so many, indeed, that "a +picture of old age in the abstract might have been taken from her +countenance."[A] + +[Footnote A: Dr. Johnson was pleased to avow that "Mrs. Porter in the +vehemence of rage, and Mrs. Clive in the sprightliness of humour, he +had never seen equalled."] + +Of a different calibre was Lacy Ryan, an ill-trained genius who could +shine pretty well in both tragedy and comedy and from whom, according +to Foote, + + "... succeeding Richards took the cue, + And hence his style, if not the colour, drew."[A] + +[Footnote A: Justice has scarcely been done to Ryan's merit. Garrick, +on going with Woodward to see his Richard with a view of being amused, +owned that he was astonished at the genius and power he saw struggling +to make itself felt through the burden of ill-training, uncouth +gestures, and an ungraceful and slovenly figure. He was generous +enough to own that all the merit there was in his own playing of +Richard he had drawn from studying this less fortunate player.--PERCY +FITZGERALD.] + +Like Mrs. Porter, Ryan was a youthful disciple of Betterton, and was +brought to the notice of Roscius in a curious fashion. One day, when +Lacy had just begun, as a boy of sixteen or seventeen, to court the +dramatic muses, he was cast for the rôle of Seyton, the old officer +who attends on Macbeth, and was, no doubt, charmed with the +assignment. To wait upon Macbeth, in however humble a capacity, was +in itself no mean honour, and when the aforesaid Macbeth would be +Betterton himself, the importance of the task was re-doubled. + +That afternoon Ryan came on the stage in all the glory of a +full-bottomed wig (imagine playing Shakespeare these days with +full-bottomed wigs) and a smiling young face, being very much pleased +with himself and the world in general. To Betterton, who had expected +to see in Seyton a henchman of mature years, and who up to this moment +had been unconscious of Lacy's existence, the appearance of the boy +came as a shock. Had the witches of the tragedy been turned into +beautiful children he could not have been more surprised. However, he +gave the new Seyton an encouraging look, and the stripling played the +part in a way to earn the approbation of the great actor. After the +performance was over, Betterton scolded old Downes, the prompter, for +"sending a child to him instead of a man advanced in years." + +This anecdote seems to show that the art of "make-up" had not reached +perfection in those times, for a few well-put strokes of the pencil +should have destroyed the juvenile aspect of Seyton. It must not be +supposed, nevertheless, that the decoration of the face was unknown, +and an entry in Pepys' delightful diary proves that "make-up" of a +certain kind flourished at the Restoration. "To the King's house," +says Pepys, "and there going in met with Knipp, and she took us up +into the tireing-rooms;[A] and to the women's shift, where Nell +(Gwyne) was dressing herself, and was all unready, and is very pretty, +prettier than I thought. (Imagine the gloating eyes of the old +hypocrite.) And into the scene-room, and there sat down, and she gave +us fruit: and here I read the questions to Knipp, while she answered +me, through all her part of 'Flora's Figarys,' which was acted to-day. +But, Lord! to see how they were both painted, would make a man mad, +and did make me loath them: and what base company of men comes among +them; and how loudly they talk! And how poor the men are in clothes, +and yet what a show they make on the stage by candle-light, is very +observable. But to see how Nell cursed, for having so few people in +the pit, was strange," _et cetera_.[B] + +[Footnote A: Mrs. Knipp was an actress belonging to the King's Company +and Mr. Pepys had for her a timid admiration.] + +[Footnote B: In his notes to Cibber's "Apology," Lowe suggests the +plausible theory that young actors playing "juveniles" did not use +any "make-up" or paint, but went on the stage with their natural +complexion. He instances this paragraph from Cibber: "The first thing +that enters into the head of a young actor is that of being a heroe: +In this ambition I was soon snubb'd by the insufficiency of my voice; +to which might be added an uniform'd meagre person (tho' then not +ill-made) with a dismal pale complexion."] + +To leave the merry days of Charles II, and wander back to those of +Queen Anne, it may be said that Ryan made his first success as the +Marcus in the original production of "Cato." It was a success rather +added to than otherwise by an adventure of which this actor was the +unfortunate victim. "In the run of that celebrated tragedy," writes +Chetwood, "he was accidently brought into a fray with some of our +Tritons on the Thames; and, in the scuffle, a blow on the nose was +given him by one of these water-bullies, who neither regard men or +manners. I remember, the same night, as he was brought on the bier, +after his suppos'd death in the fourth act of 'Cato,' the blood, from +the real wound in the face, gush'd out with violence; that hurt had +no other effect than just turning his nose a little, tho' not to +deformity; yet some people imagine it gave a very small alteration to +the tone of his voice, tho' nothing disagreeable." And a very good +advertisement it was, no doubt. + +In later years another much-discussed accident befell Mr. Ryan. As he +was going home from the theatre one night, the actor was attacked by a +footpad, and received in his face two bullets which broke a portion of +his jaw. "By the help of a lamp [again is the quotation from Chetwood] +the robber knew Mr. Ryan, as I have been inform'd, begg'd his pardon +for his mistake, and ran off. Of this hurt, too, he recover'd, after a +long illness, and play'd with success, as before, without any seeming +alteration of voice or face. His Royal Highness, upon this accident +(was it the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II?) sent him a +handsome present; and others, of the nobility, copy'd the laudable +example of the second illustrious person in the three kingdoms." + +This was Lacy Ryan, who in his time played many different parts, among +them Iago, Hamlet, Macduff, Captain Plume, and Orestes. He was not in +any sense of the word a great actor, but he well adorned the station +of theatrical life in which it had pleased heaven to place him, and +strutted his lengthy hour upon the stage with much satisfaction to +his companions and the public. Even when Ryan had to kill a bully in +self-defence (it was a fellow named Kelly, who loved to haunt the +coffee-houses, pick quarrels with peaceable citizens, and then half +murder them), the world looked on approvingly, and averred that the +player had acted with his usual conscientiousness. + +Another contemporary of Nance was Benjamin Johnson,[A] who achieved +curiously enough some of his greatest successes in the plays of his +namesake, the other Ben Jonson. He began life as a scene painter, but +afterwards turned his attention to the front, rather than the back, +of the stage--or, as he would humorously explain, "left the saint's +occupation to take that of a sinner." Johnson seems to have been a man +of the world, and he saw a good deal of life, even though he never +passed through the rough-and-tumble adventures of Lacy Ryan. When he +was born (1665) Betterton dominated the boards; when he died (1742) +Garrick had become the talk of London; and it is probable that in his +latter years Ben could tell many a story of interesting experiences. + +[Footnote A: Ben Johnson excelled greatly in all his namesake's +comedies, then frequently acted. He was of all comedians the chastest +and closest observer of nature. Johnson never seemed to know that he +was before an audience; he drew his character as the poet designed +it.--DAVIES.] + +There was one story, at least, that this actor used to relate with +much unction after a visit which he once paid to Dublin. The hero of +the affair was an Irishman, named Baker, who relieved the monotony +of his work as a master pavior by acting Sir John Falstaff and other +parts. When he was in the streets, overseeing the labours of his men, +this pavior-artist usually rehearsed one of his characters, muttering +the lines, gesticulating, and almost forgetting that he was without +the sacred walls of a theatre. The workmen soon got accustomed to +these out-of-door performances, and everything proceeded with the +utmost smoothness, until one exciting day when Baker chanced to be +alone with two new paviors. These recruits (countrymen from Cheshire) +were much alarmed at a sudden change in the demeanour of their master, +whose eyes began to roll and lips to move under the pressure of some +strange emotion. Baker was merely rehearsing Falstaff; but the two men +made up their little minds that he had lost his head, and they felt +quite sure that their employer was a dangerous lunatic, when he gave +them a piercing glance, and cried: + +"Soft! who are you? Sir Walter Blunt: there's honour for you! here's +no vanity! I am as hot as molten lead, and as heavy too. God keep lead +out of me!" + +"Wauns! I'se blunt enough to take care of you, I'se warrant you," +shouted one of the workmen, who had now recovered what he presumed to +be his wits, and thereupon he and his companion laid violent hands on +Baker. A crowd soon gathered, and despite the indignant cries of +the master-pavior, who declared he was never more sane, this son of +Thespis was tied hand and foot, and carried home in triumph with a +howling mob for attendants. That ended Mr. Baker's rehearsal for the +nonce; and it is to be presumed that, when next he essayed the lusty +Sir John, he made sure of an appreciative audience. + +It is a seductive occupation to delve into the lives of these bygone +players, and there is always temptation to tarry long and lovingly +amid such chequered careers. But, like poor Joe, of Dickens, we must +keep moving on, and so leave Johnson and Baker for another actor +who waits to strut across the stage of these "Palmy Days." Thomas +Elrington is the new-comer; the same Elrington who sought to outshine +the tragic Barton Booth, without possessing either the genius or the +scholarship of that noble son of Melpomene. As a boy, Thomas was +apprenticed by an impecunious father to an upholsterer in Covent +Garden, but he cared more for the theatre than for his trade, and +was, no doubt, regarded by his employer as a future candidate for the +gallows. + + * * * * * + +"I remember when he was an apprentice," relates Chetwood, "we play'd +in several private plays; when we were preparing to act 'Sophonisba, +or Hannibal's Overthrow,' after I had wrote out my part of Massiva I +carried him the book of the play to study the part of King Masinissa. +I found him finishing a velvet cushion, and gave him the book: +but alas! before he could secrete it, his master (a hot, voluble +Frenchman), came in upon us, and the book was thrust under the velvet +of the cushion. His master, as usual, rated him for not working, with +a 'Morbleu! why a you not vark, Tom?' and stood over him so long that +I saw, with some mortification, the book irrecoverably stitch'd up in +the cushion never to be retriev'd till the cushion is worn to pieces. +Poor Tom cast many a desponding look upon me when he was finishing the +fate of the play, while every stitch went to both our hearts. + +"His master observing our looks, turn'd to me, and with words that +broke their necks over each other for haste, abused both of us. The +most intelligible of his great number of words were Jack Pudenges, and +the like expressions of contempt. But our play was gone for ever. + +"Another time," continues the biographer, "we were so bold to attempt +Shakespeare's 'Hamlet,' where our 'prentice Tom had the part of the +Ghost, father to young Hamlet. His armour was composed of pasteboard, +neatly painted. The Frenchman had intelligence of what we were about, +and to our great surprise and mortification, made one of our audience. +The Ghost in its first appearance is dumb to Horatio. While these +scenes past, the Frenchman only muttered between his teeth, and we +were in hopes his passion would subside; but when our Ghost began his +first speech to Hamlet, 'Mark me,' he replied, 'Begar, me vil marke +you presently!' and, without saying any more, beat our poor Ghost off +the stage through the street, while every stroke on the pasteboard +armour grieved the auditors (because they did not pay for their +seats), insomuch that three or four ran after the Ghost, and brought +him back in triumph, with the avenging Frenchman at his heels, who +would not be appeas'd till our Ghost promised him never to commit the +offence of acting again. A promise made, like many others, never to be +kept." + + * * * * * + +Elrington ultimately became a favourite player with Dublin audiences, +and then contested with Booth in the latter's own ground of London. He +never equalled the classic Barton, yet made a success in tragedy, and +was once asked (1728-9) to join the forces of Drury Lane for a term +of years. He told the managers that he could not think of permanently +leaving Ireland, where he was so well rewarded for his services, and +added, "There is not a gentleman's house there to which I am not a +welcome visitor," which shows that an actor can be a snob, like the +worst of us. + +When Elrington died, two years after the taking off of Oldfield, his +epitaph was written in these flattering lines:-- + + "Thou best of actors here interr'd, + No more thy charming voice is heard, + This grave thy corse contains: + Thy better part, which us'd to move + Our admiration, and our Love, + Has fled its sad remains. + + "Tho' there's no monumental brass, + Thy sacred relicks to encase, + Thou wondrous man of art! + A lover of the muse divine, + O! Elrington, shall be thy shrine, + And carve thee in his heart." + +One of Elrington's friends and artistic associates happened to be +John Evans, a player possessed of talent, fatness, and indolence. As +adventures seem to be in order in this chapter, let us recall two +which occurred to this gentleman at a time when he was in high favour +with the Irish. The first episode, making a warlike prologue to the +second, had for its scene a tavern in the good city of Cork, where +Evans had been invited to sup by some officers stationed in the +neighbourhood. Jack responded gladly to the hospitable suggestion; the +gathering proved a great success, the wine was circulated generously, +and many toasts were offered. When the actor was called upon for a +sentiment, he proposed the health of his gracious sovereign, Anne, +whereat all in the company were pleased with the exception of one +disloyal redcoat. Whether the latter had within him the contrariness +which cometh with too liberal dalliance with the flowing bowl, or +whether he chanced to be a Jacobite, further deponent sayeth not, but +it is at least certain that the officer was not pleased at the honour +paid to the Queen whose uniform he was willing to wear. So Mr. +Malcontent leaves the room, and then sends up word to poor, +inoffensive Jack, that he will be delighted to see that worthy below +stairs; whereupon Jack quietly steals away and finds his would-be +antagonist lurking behind a half-opened door. The soldier makes a +lunge with his sword at the player, who succeeds in disarming the +coward, and there the matter apparently stops. + +But the end was not yet. When Evans went to Dublin, he found that his +late challenger was circulating a lie, which made it appear that the +comedian had in somewise affronted the whole British Army. No sooner +did Jack put his face upon the stage than a great clamour arose, and +it was decreed by the bullies among the audience (of whom there are +ever a few in every house), that no play should be presented until the +culprit had publicly begged pardon for a sin which he never committed. +The play was "The Rival Queens," the part assigned to Evans that of +Alexander, but 'twas some time before this Alexander could be induced +to crave the forgiveness of the excitable Dublinites. Finally he +yielded to expediency, and, coming forward to the centre of the stage, +expressed his contrition. At this, a puppy in the pit cried out +"Kneel, you rascal!" and Evans, now thoroughly exasperated, tartly +answered: "No, you rascal! I'll kneel to none but God, and my Queen." +Then the performance began.[A] + +[Footnote A: "As there were many worthy gentlemen of the army who knew +the whole affair, the new rais'd clamour ceas'd, and the play went +through without any molestation, and, by degrees, things return'd to +their proper channel By this we may see, it is some danger for an +actor to be in the right."--CHETWOOD.] + +How Chetwood bubbles over with a stream of ever-flowing anecdote. Much +that he gives us in his "General History of the Stage" is only gossip, +yet what is there more fascinating than tittle-tattle about players? +The gossip of the drawing-room is merely inane, or else scandalous; +but shift the scene to the theatre, and a story no longer bores; it is +consecrated by the sacrament of interest. Is any apology necessary, +therefore, if the quotation marks be again brought into requisition. +This time the anecdote is of Thomas Griffith, an excellent comedian, +and a harmless poet. + +"After his commencing actor, he contracted a friendship with Mr. +Wilks; which chain remained unbroke till the death of that excellent +comedian. Tho' Mr. Griffith was very young, Mr. Wilks took him with +him to London (from Dublin), and had him entered for that season at +a small salary. The 'Indian Emperor' being ordered on a sudden to +be played, the part of Pizarro, a Spaniard, was wanting, which Mr. +Griffith procured, with some difficulty. Mr. Betterton being a little +indisposed, would not venture out to rehearsal, for fear of increasing +his indisposition, to the disappointment of the audience, who had not +seen our young stripling rehearse. But, when he came ready, at the +entrance, his ears were pierced with a voice not familiar to him. He +cast his eyes upon the stage, where he beheld the diminutive Pizarro, +with a truncheon as long as himself (his own words.) + +"He steps up to Downs, the prompter, and cry'd, 'Zounds, Downs, what +sucking scaramouch have you sent on there?' 'Sir,' replied Downs, +'He's good enough for a Spaniard; the part is small.' Betterton +return'd, 'If he had made his eyebrows his whiskers, and each whisker +a line, the part would have been two lines too much for such a monkey +in buskins.' + +"Poor Griffith stood on the stage, near the door, and heard every +syllable of the short dialogue, and by his fears knew who was meant by +it; but, happy for him, he had no more to speak that scene. When the +first act was over (by the advice of Downs) he went to make his excuse +with--'Indeed, Sir, I had not taken the part, but there was only I +alone out of the play.' 'I! I!' reply'd Betterton, with a smile, 'Thou +art but the tittle of an I.' Griffith seeing him in no ill humour told +him, 'Indians ought to be the best figures on the stage, as nature had +made them.' 'Very like,' reply'd Betterton, 'but it would be a double +death to an Indian cobbler to be conquer'd by such a weazle of a +Spaniard as thou art. And, after this night, let me never see a +truncheon in thy hand again, unless to stir the fire.' ... He took his +advice, laid aside the buskin, and stuck to the sock, in which he made +a figure equal to most of his contemporaries. + + "Our genius flutters with the plumes of youth, + But observation wings to steddy truth." + +No one can resist telling another story, this time of fat Charles +Hulet, whose abilities were only equalled by his corpulence. Having +been apprenticed to a bookseller, he straightway proceeded to take a +violent interest in the drama, and would often while away the evenings +by spouting Shakespeare and other authors. In lieu of a company to +support him young Hulet would designate each chair in the kitchen to +represent one of the characters in the play he was reciting. "One +night, as he was repeating the part of Alexander, with his wooden +representative of Clytus (an old elbow-chair), and coming to the +speech where the old General is to be kill'd, this young mock +Alexander snatch'd a poker instead of a javelin, and threw it with +such strength against poor Clytus, that the chair was kill'd upon +the spot, and lay mangled on the floor. The death of Clytus made a +monstrous noise, which disturbed the master in the parlour, who called +out to know the reason; and was answered by the cook below, 'Nothing, +sir, but that Alexander has kill'd Clytus.'" + + * * * * * + +In latter days Hulet took great pride in the sonorous tones of his +voice, and loved nothing more dearly than to steal up behind a man and +startle the unsuspecting one by giving a very loud "Hem." It was a +"Hem," however, which helped to make the actor's winding-sheet, for +one fine day he repeated the trick, burst a blood-vessel, and died +within twenty-four hours. + +Heaven bless all these merry vagabonds! We may not always wish to +follow in their footsteps, but we like to keep near them and pry into +their careless, happy lives. When the Bohemians enter a pot-house we +are too virtuous, presumably, to go in likewise, but we stand without, +to get a tempting whiff of hot negus and a snatch of some genial jest +or tuneful song. Then, if our players stray, perchance, into the +gloomy precincts of a pawn-shop, are we not quite prepared to steal up +to the window and discover what tribute is being paid to mine uncle? +And so, speaking of pot-houses, and negus, and pawn-shops, let us end +our extracts from the invaluable Chetwood with this unconventional +reminiscence of another player, Mr. John Thurmond. It was a custom at +that time for persons of the first rank and distinction to give their +birthday suits to the most favoured actors. I think Mr. Thurmond was +honoured by General Ingolsby with his. But his finances being at the +last tide of ebb, the rich suit was put in buckle (a cant word for +forty in the hundred interest). One night, notice was given that the +General would be present with the Government at the play, and all +the performers on the stage were preparing to dress out in the suits +presented. The spouse of Johnny (as he was commonly called) try'd all +her arts to persuade Mr. Holdfast, the pawnbroker (as it fell out, his +real name) to let go the cloaths for that evening, to be returned when +the play was over. But all arguments were fruitless; nothing but +the Ready, or a pledge of full equal value. Such people would have +despised a Demosthenes, or a Cicero, with all their rhetorical +flourishes, if their oratorian gowns had been in pledge. Well! what +must be done? The whole family in confusion and all at their wits-end; +disgrace, with her glaring eyes and extended mouth, ready to devour. +Fatal appearance! + + * * * * * + +"At last Winny, the wife (that is, Winnifrede), put on a compos'd +countenance (but, alas! with a troubled heart); stepp'd to a +neighbouring tavern, and bespoke a very hot negus, to comfort Johnny +in the great part he was to perform that night, begging to have the +silver tankard with the lid, because, as she said, 'a covering, and +the vehicle silver, would retain heat longer than any other metal,' +The request was comply'd with, the negus carry'd to the playhouse +piping hot, popp'd into a vile earthen mug--the tankard _l'argent_ +travelled _incog_. under her apron (like the Persian ladies veil'd), +popp'd into the pawnbroker's hands, in exchange for the suit--put on +and play'd its part, with the rest of the wardrobe; when its duty +was over, carried back to remain in its old depository; the tankard +return'd the right road; and, when the tide flowed with its lunar +influence, the stranded suit was wafted into safe harbour again, after +paying a little for 'dry docking,' which was all the damage received." + + * * * * * + +And Mr. Chetwood adds: + + "Thus woman's wit (tho' some account it evil) + With artful wiles can overreach the Devil." + +Among such as these, good, bad and indifferent, moral and otherwise, +did Mistress Oldfield pass what hours she consecrated to the theatre. +In the early years, when merely a poor, struggling postulant before +the altar of fame, the girl must have been more or less intimate with +her dramatic associates, but as time went on and Nance blazed into a +star of the first magnitude, the old feeling of fellowship may have +become weakened. Not that the actress was in any sense snobbish; +rather let it be said that the circumstances of her celebrity proved +quite enough, in the course of human affairs, to separate her from the +other players. Indeed, one of her biographers relates that Oldfield +always went in state to Drury Lane, accompanied by two footmen, and +that she seldom spoke to any one of the actors.[A] + +[Footnote A: She always went to the house (_i.e._, the theatre) in the +same dress she had worn at dinner in her visits to the houses of great +people; for she was much caressed on account of her general merit, and +her connection with Mr. Churchill. She used to go to the playhouse in +a chair, attended by two footmen; she seldom spoke to any one of +the actors, and was allowed a sum of money to buy her own +clothes.--"General Biographical Dictionary."] + +Nance may have made her entry into the green-room amid royal auspices, +but who can for a second believe that "she seldom spoke to any one +of the actors"? There was in her composition too much of sunshine to +warrant any such belief, and then we know that behind the scenes she +was ever affable and friendly. If she did not brook familiarity which +comes of contempt, and if she moved about among her companions with +dignity, then so much the better. + +Of Nance's sweetness of temper and sterling common-sense, Cibber +has left us an attractive memory. It seems that when the Drury Lane +management determined to revive "The Provoked Wife" of Sir John +Vanbrugh (January 1726), Colley suggested that Wilks should take a +rest during the run of the piece, and allow Barton Booth to play the +lover, Constant. The idea did not meet with Wilks' approval; "down +dropt his brow, and fur'd were his features"; and the green-room +became the scene of a violent spat between Cibber and himself, with +Mrs. Oldfield and other members of the company as excited listeners. +Finally the author of the "Apology" said: "Are you not every day +complaining of your being over-labour'd? And now, upon the first +offering to ease you, you fly into a passion, and pretend to make that +a greater grievance than t'other: But, Sir, if your being in or out of +the play is a hardship, you shall impose it upon yourself: The part is +in your hand, and to us it is a matter of indifference now whether you +take it or leave it." + +[Illustration: SIR JOHN VANBRUGH By Sir GODFREY KNELLER] + +Upon this Mr. Wilks "threw down the part upon the table, crossed +his arms, and sate knocking his heel upon the floor, as seeming to +threaten most when he said least." Hereupon Booth generously yielded +up the much disputed Constant to his rival with the remark that "for +his part, he saw no such great matter in acting every day; for he +believed it the wholsomest exercise in the world; it kept the spirits +in motion, and always gave him a good stomach"--and the elegant +Barton, be it remembered, was a great eater. + + * * * * * + +"Here," says Cibber, "I observed Mrs. Oldfield began to titter behind +her fan. But Wilks being more intent upon what Booth had said, +reply'd, every one could best feel for himself, but he did not pretend +to the strength of a pack-horse; therefore if Mrs. Oldfield would +chuse anybody else to play with her, he should be very glad to be +excus'd. This throwing the negative upon Mrs. Oldfield was, indeed, a +sure way to save himself; which I could not help taking notice of, by +saying it was making but an ill compliment to the company to suppose +there was but one man in it fit to play an ordinary part with her. + +"Here Mrs. Oldfield got up, and turning me half round to come forward, +said with her usual frankness, 'Pooh! you are all a parcel of fools, +to make such a rout about nothing!' Rightly judging that the person +most out of humour would not be more displeased at her calling us all +by the same name. As she knew, too, the best way of ending the debate +would be to help the weak, she said, she hop'd Mr. Wilks would not so +far mind what had past as to refuse his acting the part with her; for +tho' it might not be so good as he had been us'd to, yet she believed +those who had bespoke the play would expect to have it done to the +best advantage, and it would make but an odd story abroad if it were +known there had been any difficulty in that point among ourselves. To +conclude, Wilks had the part." + +Verily, Oldfield was a gentlewoman. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +"GRIEF À LA MODE" + + +"UNDERTAKER [_To his men_]. Well, come you that are to be mourners in +this house, put on your sad looks, and walk by me that I may sort you. +Ha, you! a little more upon the dismal; [_forming their countenances_] +this fellow has a good mortal look--place him near the corpse: that +wainscot face must be o' top of the stairs; that fellow's almost in a +fright (that looks as if he were full of some strange misery) at the +entrance to the hall. So--but I'll fix you all myself. Let's have no +laughing now on any provocation. [_Makes faces_.] Look yonder, that +hale, well-looking puppy! You ungrateful scoundrel, did not I pity +you, take you out of a great man's service, and shew you the pleasure +of receiving wages? Did not I give you ten, then fifteen, now twenty +shillings a week, to be sorrowful? and the more I give you, I think, +the gladder you are. + +"_Enter a_ BOY. + +"BOY. Sir, the grave-digger of St. Timothy's in the Fields would speak +with you. + +"UNDERTAKER. Let him come in. + +"_Enter_ GRAVE-DIGGER. + +"GRAVE-DIGGER. I carried home to your house the shroud the gentleman +was buried in last night; I could not get his ring off very easilly, +therefore I brought you the finger and all; and, sir, the sexton gives +his service to you, and desires to know whether you'd have any bodies +removed or not: if not, he'll let them be in their graves a week +longer. + +"UNDERTAKER. Give him my service; I can't tell readilly: but our +friend, Dr. Passeport, with the powder, has promised me six or seven +funerals this week." + + * * * * * + +These extracts are not from the manuscript of a modern +farce-comedy,[A] but belong to Steele's play of "The Funeral, or Grief +à la Mode." If they have about them all the air of _fin-de-siècle_ +wit, so much the more eloquently do they testify to the freshness +of Dick's satire. Freshness, satire, and death! Surely the three +ingredients seem unmixable; yet when poured into the crucible of +Steele's genius they resulted in a crystal that sparkled delightfully +amid the lights of a theatre--a crystal which might still shed +brilliancy if some enterprising manager would exhibit it to a jaded +public. + +[Footnote A: In "A Milk White Flag," a good specimen of "up-to-date" +farce, Mr. Hoyt dallies entertainingly and discreetly with the +blithesome topics of undertakers, corpses, and widows.] + +In "The Funeral" the author impaled, with many a merciless slash of +the pen, the hypocrisy and vulgar flummery that characterised the +whole gruesome ceremony of conducting to its earthly resting-place +the body of a well-to-do sinner. For the average Englishman loved a +funeral and all its ghastly accompaniments as passionately as though +he had Irish blood in his veins, and often insisted upon investing the +burial of his friends with the mockery, rather than the sincerity, of +woe. + +Grief thus became a pleasure, and it was a pleasure, be it added, +which was not taken too sadly. (Pardon the paradox.) The spirits of +the deceased's many admirers had to be raised, and the enlivening +process was set in motion by means of numerous libations, not of +tea, but of lusty wine. When the wife of mine host of the "Crown +and Sceptre" left this world of cooking and drinking, the women who +crowded to the good lady's funeral had to drown their sorrows in a tun +of red port,[A] and it is evident that at the burial of men the grief +of the mourners required an equal amount of quenching. Indeed, the +most absurd expenditures and preparations were made for what should be +the simplest of ceremonies, and the result oftentimes proved garish +in the extreme. As an example of the display in this direction, John +Ashton quotes from the _Daily Courant_ a report of the obsequies of +Sir William Pritchard, sometime Lord Mayor of London. After a +vast deal of pomp wasted in St. Albans and other places upon the +unappreciative and inanimate Pritchard, the remains reached the +country seat of the deceased, in the county of Buckingham. "Where, +after the body had been set out, with all ceremony befitting his +degree, for near two hours, 'twas carried to the church adjacent in +this order, viz., 2 conductors with long staves, 6 men in long cloaks +two and two, the standard, 18 men in cloaks as before, servants to +the deceas'd two and two, divines, the minister of the parish and the +preacher, the helm and crest, sword and target, gauntlets and spurs, +born by an officer of Arms, both in their rich coats of Her Majesty's +Arms enbroider'd; the body, between 6 persons of the Arms of Christ's +Hospital, St. Bartholomew's, Merchant Taylors Company, City of +London, empaled coat and single coat; the chief mourner and his four +assistants, followed by the relations of the defunct, &c."[B] In this +aggregation of grandeur the mere bagatelle in the shape of a corpse +seems almost completely overshadowed, and it is thus comforting to +reflect that the latter finally had interment in a "handsome large +vault, in the isle on the north side of the church, betwixt 7 and 8 of +the clock that evening." The dear departed, or grief for his memory, +frequently played but too small a rôle in all these trappings of +despondency, and the insignificance of the deceased might only be +likened to the secondary position of a man at his own wedding. It was +all fuss and mortuary feathers, mourning rings and mulled wine in the +one case, just as in the other it is entirely a show of bride and +blushes, flounces and femininity. [Footnote A: In writing of the +customs connected with old-time English funerals, Misson says: "The +relations and chief mourners are in a chamber apart, with their more +intimate friends; and the rest of the guests are dispersed in several +rooms about the house. When they are ready to set out, they nail +up the coffin, and a servant presents the company with sprigs of +rosemary: Every one takes a sprig and carries it in his hand till the +body is put into the grave, at which time they all throw their sprigs +in after it. Before they set out, and after they return, it is usual +to present the guests with something to drink, either red or white +wine, boil'd with sugar and cinnamon, or some such liquor. Butler, the +keeper of a tavern, told me there was a tun of red port drank at his +wife's burial, besides mull'd white wine. Note, no men ever go to +women's burials, nor the women to the men's; so that there were none +but women at the drinking of Butler's wine. Such women in England will +hold it out with the men, when they have a bottle before them, as well +as upon t'other occasion, and tattle infinitely better than they."] + +[Footnote B: The will of Benjamin Dod, a Roman Catholic citizen of +London (died 1714) runs in part as follows: "I desire four and twenty +persons to be at my burial ... to every of which four and twenty +persons ... I give a pair of white gloves, a ring of ten shillings +value, a bottle of wine at my funeral, and half a crown to be spent +at their return that night; to drink my soul's health, then on her +Journey for Purification in order to Eternal Rest. I appoint the room, +where my corpse shall lie, to be hung with black, and four and twenty +wax candles to be burning; on my coffin to be affixed a cross and this +inscription, _Jesus Hominum Salvator_. I also appoint my corpse to be +carried in a herse drawn with six white horses, with white feathers, +and followed by six coaches, with six horses to each coach, to carry +the four and twenty persons.... Item, I give to forty of my particular +acquaintance, not at my funeral, to every one of them a gold ring of +ten shillings value.... As for mourning, I leave that to my executors +hereafter nam'd; and I do not desire them to give any to whom I +shall leave a legacy.... I will have no Presbyterian, Moderate Low +Churchmen, or Occasional Conformists, to be at or have anything to do +with my funeral. I die in the Faith of the True Catholic Church. I +desire to have a tomb stone over me, with a Latin inscription, and +a lamp, or six wax candles, to burn seven days and nights +thereon."--_Vide_ ASHTON.] + +Was it any wonder that when Dick Steele, aetat twenty-six, an officer +of Fusiliers, and a merry vagabond, wanted to redeem his reputation by +writing a rollicking comedy, his thoughts turned to the satirising of +the British undertaker? For the young man must prove to the town that +he was not the hypocrite several of his kind friends had dubbed him. +The fact was, that he had been virtuous enough to write a pious work +entitled, "The Christian Hero," which he afterwards published, but +as he had not grown sufficiently master of himself to live up to its +golden precepts (nay, rather did he continue to spend his evenings in +the taverns), the author came in for many a taunt and sneer. Why did +he not practice what he preached? was the sarcastic query of his +intimates. + +Yet there was no thought of cant in what the soldier had done. His +design in issuing the "Christian Hero" was, as he explained in after +years, "principally to fix upon his own mind a strong impression of +virtue and religion, in opposition to a stronger propensity towards +unwarrantable pleasures." This secret admiration was too weak; he +therefore printed the book with his name, in hopes that a standing +testimony against himself, and the eyes of the world (that is to say, +of his acquaintances) upon him in a new light, would make him ashamed +of understanding and seeming to feel what was virtuous, and living so +contrary to life. + +But the man was weak where the author was willing, and thus gay +Richard went on "living so contrary a life" with true Celtic +perversity, and made of himself anything but a Christian Hero. +Rather was he a jolly Pagan, with a passion for his wine and his +coffee-house, and a kindly, merry word even for those who twitted him +upon his inconsistency. It was plain, therefore, that he must be some +other sort of hero, and so he evolved the brilliant satire of "The +Funeral," to "enliven his character, and repel the sarcasms of those +who abused him for his declarations relative to religion." + +[Illustration: SIR RICHARD STEELE + +By Sir GODFREY KNELLER] + +In the twinkling of an eye Steele became the spoiled darling of the +day. The comedy, which was produced at Drury Lane in 1702, was the +talk of the enthusiastic town, and the playwright arose from +his beer-mugs, his wine-flagons, and his contemplation of ideal +Christianity, to find himself famous. He had opened a new vein of +satire, and a vein moreover which upheld virtue and laughed to scorn +hypocrisy and vice. That was a moral which the dramatists of his epoch +seldom taught.[A] And so the people crowded to the theatre, applauded +the sentiment of the play, guffawed at the keen wit of the dialogue, +and swore that this young rascal Steele was the prince of bright +fellows. Then they went home--and revelled, as before, in the funerals +of their friends. + +[Footnote A: The "Funeral" is the merriest and most perfect of +Steele's comedies. The characters are strongly marked, the wit genial, +and not indecent. Steele was among the first who set about reforming +the licentiousness of the old comedy. His satire in the "Funeral" is +not against virtue, but vice and silliness.--DR. DORAN.] + +What of this remarkable comedy? Its story turned upon the marriage of +the elderly Lord Brumpton to a designing young minx who estranges the +nobleman from his son, Lord Hardy, the gentlemanly, poverty-stricken +leading man of the piece. When Brumpton has a cataleptic fit, and is +apparently dead as a doornail, the spouse confides his body to the +undertaker with feelings of serene pleasure. But let the lines of the +play, or a portion thereof, unfold the situation. + +The scene is at Lord Brumpton's house; the nobleman has just been +pronounced defunct, and Sable, the undertaker, has arrived. The +latter, who is being bantered by two of the characters, Mr. Campley +and Cabinet, is evidently a bit of a philosopher, albeit an uncanny +one, for he says: + + * * * * * + +"There are very few in the whole world that live to themselves, but +sacrifice their bosom-bliss to enjoy a vain show and appearance of +prosperity in the eyes of others; and there is often nothing more +inwardly distressed than a young bride in her glittering retinue, or +deeply joyful than a young widow in her weeds and black train; of both +which the lady of this house may be an instance, for she has been the +one, and is, I'll be sworn, the other. + +"CABINET. You talk, Mr. Sable, most learnedly. + +"SABLE. I have the deepest learning, sir, experience; remember your +widow cousin, that married last month. + +"CABINET. Ay, but how you'd you imagine she was in all that grief +an hypocrite! Could all those shrieks, those swoonings, that rising +falling bosom, be constrained? You're uncharitable, Sable, to believe +it. What colour, what reason had you for it? + +"SABLE. First, Sir, her carriage in her concerns with me, for I never +yet could meet with a sorrowful relict but was herself enough to +make a hard bargain with me. Yet I must confess they have frequent +interruptions of grief and sorrow when they read my bill; but as for +her, nothing she resolv'd, that look'd bright or joyous, should +after her love's death approach her. All her servants that were not +coal-black must turn out; a fair complexion made her eyes and heart +ake, she'd none but downright jet, and to exceed all example, she +hir'd my mourning furniture by the year, and in case of my mortality, +ty'd my son to the same article; so in six weeks time ran away with a +young fellow." + + * * * * * + +And so on (with a cynicism of which, of course, no modern "funeral +director" would be guilty--out loud), until the undertaker's men come +on the scene. + + * * * * * + +"Where in the name of goodness have you all been?" asks SABLE. "Have +you brought the sawdust and tar for embalming? Have you the hangings +and the sixpenny nails, and my lord's coat of arms?" + +"SERVANT. Yes, sir, and had come sooner, but I went to the herald's +for a coat for Alderman Gathergrease that died last night--he has +promised to invent one against to-morrow." + +"SABLE. Ah! pox take some of our cits, the first thing after their +death is to take care of their birth--let him bear a pair of +stockings, he is the first of his family that ever wore one.... And +you, Mr. Blockhead, I warrant you have not call'd at Mr. Pestle's the +apothecary: will that fellow never pay me? I stand bound for all the +poison in that starving murderer's shop: he serves me just as Dr. +Quibus did, who promised to write a treatise against water-gruel, a +healthy slop that has done me more injury than all the Faculty: look +you now, you are all upon the sneer, let me have none but downright +stupid countenances. I've a good mind to turn you all off, and take +people out of the playhouse; but hang them, they are as ignorant of +their parts as you are of yours.... Ye stupid rogues, whom I have +picked out of the rubbish of mankind, and fed for your eminent +worthlessness, attend, and know that I speak you this moment stiff and +immutable to all sense of noise, mirth or laughter. [_Makes mouths at +them as they pass by him to bring them to a constant countenance_.] +So, they are pretty well--pretty well." + +[_Exit_. + + * * * * * + +When the stage is clear Lord Brumpton and his servant Trusty enter. +The former has wakened from his cataleptic trance, as the faithful +Trusty watched beside him, and is horrified to learn of Lady +Brumpton's lack of grief. But hush; he will conceal himself, for +here comes my lady, accompanied by her woman and confidant, Mistress +Tattleaid. + + * * * * * + +"_Enter_ WIDOW _and_ TATTLEAID, _meeting and running to each other_. + +"WIDOW. Oh, Tattleaid, his and our hour has come! + +"TAT. I always said by his church yard cough, you'd bury him, and +still you were impatient. + +"WIDOW. Nay, thou hast ever been my comfort, my confident, my friend, +and my servant; and now I'll reward thy pains; for tho' I scorn the +whole sex of fellows I'll give them hopes for thy sake; every smile, +every frown, every gesture, humour, caprice and whimsy of mine shall +be gold to thee, girl; thou shalt feel all the sweets and wealth of +being a fine rich widow's woman. Oh! how my head runs my first year +out, and jumps to all the joys of widowhood! If thirteen months hence +a friend should haul one to a play one has a mind to see,[A] what +pleasure t'will be when my Lady Brumpton's footman called (who kept +a place for that very purpose) to make a sudden insurrection of fine +wigs in the pit and side-boxes. Then, with a pretty sorrow in one's +face, and a willing blush for being stared at, one ventures to look +round, and bow to one of one's own quality. Thus [_very directly_] to +a snug pretending fellow of no fortune. Thus [_as scarce seeing him_] +to one that writes lampoons. Thus [_fearfully_] to one who really +loves. Thus [_looking down_] to one woman-acquaintance, from box to +box, thus [_with looks differently familiar_], and when one has done +one's part, observe the actors do theirs, but with my mind fixed not +on those I look at, but those that look at me. Then the serenades--the +lovers! [A query--if the theatres were patronised only by those who +looked solely at the stage, what would be the size of the audiences?] + +[Footnote A: A well-regulated widow kept herself at home for six weeks +after the death of her husband, and denied herself the theatre and +other public amusements for a twelvemonth.] + +"TAT. Oh, madam, you make my heart bound within me: I'll warrant you, +madam, I'll manage them all; and indeed, madam, the men are really +very silly creatures, 'tis no such hard matter--they rulers! they +governors! I warrant you indeed. + +"WIDOW. Ay, Tattleaid, they imagine themselves mighty things, but +government founded on force only, is a brutal power--we rule them by +their affections, which blinds them into belief that they rule us, or +at least are in the government with us. But in this nation our power +is absolute; thus, thus, we sway--[_playing her fan_]. A fan is both +the standard and the flag of England. I laugh to see men go on our +errands, strut in great offices, live in cares, hazards and scandals, +to come home and be fools to us in brags of their dispatches, +negotiations, and their wisdoms--as my good dear deceas'd use to +entertain me; which I, to relieve myself from, would lisp some silly +request, pat him on the face. He shakes his head at my pretty folly, +calls me simpleton; gives me a jewel, then goes to bed so wise, so +satisfied, and so deceived." + + * * * * * + +This pleasant conversation Lord Brumpton overhears, as he does also +the inmost secrets of his lawyer, Puzzle. The latter gentleman, who +has studied hard to cheat his good-natured employer, and succeeded, is +a daringly drawn satire on the pettifogging attorney of the period.[A] +Note the following words of wisdom, _à propos_ to the drawing of wills, +which Mr. Puzzle addresses to his nephew. + +[Footnote A: Of the attorney of Queen Anne's day Ward wrote: "He's an +Amphibious Monster, that partakes of two Natures, and those contrary; +He's a great Lover both of Peace and Enmity; and has no sooner set +People together by the Ears, but is Soliciting the Law to make an end +of the Difference. His Learning is commonly as little as his Honesty; +and his Conscience much larger than his Green Bag. Catch him in what +Company soever, you will always hear him stating of Cases, or telling +what notice my Lord Chancellor took of him, when he beg'd leave to +supply the deficiency of his Counsel. He always talks with as great +assurance as if he understood what he only pretends to know: And +always wears a Band, and in that lies his Gravity and Wisdom. He +concerns himself with no Justice but the Justice of a Cause: and for +making an unconscionable Bill he outdoes a Taylor."] + +"PUZZLE. As for legacies, they are good or not, as I please; for let +me tell you, a man must take pen, ink and paper, sit down by an old +fellow, and pretend to take directions, but a true lawyer never makes +any man's will but his own; and as the priest of old among us got near +the dying man, and gave all to the Church, so now the lawyer gives all +to the law. + +"CLERK. Ay, sir, but priests then cheated the nation by doing their +offices in an unknown language. + +"PUZZLE. True, but ours is a way much surer; for we cheat in no +language at all, but loll in our own coaches, eloquent in gibberish, +and learned in jingle. Pull out the parchment [_referring to the will +of_ LORD BRUMPTON], there's the deed; I made it as long as I could. +Well, I hope to see the day when the indenture shall be the exact +measure of the land that passes by it; for 'tis a discouragement to +the gown, that every ignorant rogue of an heir should in a word or +two understand his father's meaning, and hold ten acres of land by +half-an-acre of parchment. Nay, I hope to see the time when that there +is indeed some progress made in, shall be wholly affected; and by the +improvement of the noble art of tautology, every Inn in Holborn an Inn +of Court. Let others think of logic, rhetoric, and I know not what +impertinence, but mind thou tautology. What's the first excellence in +a lawyer? Tautology. What's the second? Tautology. What's the third? +Tautology; as an old pleader said of action." + + * * * * * + +Who shall say that the tautological sentiments of Mr. Puzzle are not +still inculcated? Nay, the whole play furnishes a capital instance of +the truism that the world changes but little, and, furthermore, that +the mould of nigh two centuries cannot spoil the wit of sparkling +Steele. Ah, Dick! Dick! you may have been a sorry dog, with your +toasts and your taverns, yet 'tis a thousand pities that a few +dramatists of to-day cannot drink inspiration from the same cups. + +To continue our cheerful journey with this unusual "Funeral," we soon +find ourselves introduced to Lord Hardy, the unjustly discarded son of +Brumpton. Hardy is a high-spirited, honest man of quality, a trifle +out at elbows just now, owing to the stoppage of financial supplies +from the paternal mansion. His straits are oft severe, and it is +fortunate that he has in Trim a faithful servant who knows so well how +to keep the duns at bay. "Why, friend, says I [Trim is describing to +Hardy his method of dealing with his lordship's creditors], how often +must I tell you my lord is not stirring. His lordship has not slept +well, you must come some other time; your lordship will send for him +when you are at leisure to look upon money affairs; or if they are so +saucy, so impertinent as to press a man of your quality for their +own, there are canes, there's Bridewel, there's the stocks for your +ordinary tradesmen; but to an haughty, thriving Covent Garden mercer, +silk or laceman, your lordship gives your most humble service to him, +hopes his wife is well; you have letters to write, or you would see +him yourself, but you desire he would be with you punctually on such +a day, that is to say, the day after you are gone out of town, Which +shows very plainly that Trim could have earned large wages had he +lived in the nineteenth century. These 'Palmy Days' are not long +enough, however, to permit the introduction of all the characters, nor +the outlining of the entire story, with its brisk love-interest. But +this bit of dialogue, which occurs after Sable has discovered the +much-alive Lord Brumpton, is too good to be ignored: + +"SABLE. Why, my lord, you can't in conscience put me off so; I must do +according to my orders, cut you up, and embalm you, except you'll come +down a little deeper than you talk of; you don't consider the charges +I have been at already. + +"LORD BRUMPTON. Charges! for what? + +"SABLE. First, twenty guineas to my lady's woman for notice of your +death (a fee I've before now known the widow herself go halves in), +but no matter for that--in the next place, ten pounds for watching you +all your long fit of sickness last winter-- + +"LORD BRUMPTON. Watching me? Why I had none but my own servants by +turns! + +"SABLE. I mean attending to give notice of your death. I had all your +long fit of sickness, last winter, at half a crown a day, a fellow +waiting at your gate to bring me intelligence, but you unfortunately +recovered, and I lost all my obliging pains for your service. + +"LORD BRUMPTON. Ha! ha! ha! Sable, thou'rt a very impudent fellow. Half +a crown a day to attend my decease, and dost thou reckon it to me?" + +"SABLE.... I have a book at home, which I call my doomsday-book, where +I have every man of quality's age and distemper in town, and know +when you should drop. Nay, my lord, if you had reflected upon your +mortality half so much as poor I have for you, you would not desire to +return to life thus--in short, I cannot keep this a secret, under the +whole money I am to have for burying you." + + * * * * * + +Of course Lady Brumpton is discomfited and disgraced at the end of +the play, and, of course, Lord Brumpton is reconciled to his son--for +Steele took care that virtue should be rewarded and the moral code +otherwise preserved. As to her ladyship, who has proved a very +entertaining sort of villain, we shall take leave of her in one of the +best scenes of the comedy: + +"WIDOW. _[Reading the names of the visitors who have called to leave +their condolences]_ Mrs. Frances and Mrs. Winnifred Glebe, who are +they?" + +"TATTLEAID. They are the country great fortunes, have been out of town +this whole year; they are those whom your ladyship said upon being +very well-born took upon them to be very ill-bred." + +"WIDOW. Did I say so? Really I think it was apt enough; now I remember +them. Lady Wrinkle--oh, that smug old woman! there is no enduring +her affectation of youth; but I plague her; I always ask whether her +daughter in Wiltshire has a grandchild yet or not. Lady Worth--I can't +bear her company; [_aside_] she has so much of that virtue in her +heart which I have in mouth only. Mrs. After-day--Oh, that's she that +was the great beauty, the mighty toast about town, that's just come +out of the small-pox; she is horribly pitted they say; I long to see +her, and plague her with my condolence.... But you are sure these +other ladies suspect not in the least that I know of their coming? + +"TAT. No, dear madam, they are to ask for me. + +"WIDOW. I hear a coach. [_Exit_ TATTLEAID.] I have now an exquisite +pleasure in the thought of surpassing my Lady Sly, who pretends to +have out-grieved the whole town for her husband. They are certainly +coming. Oh, no! here let me--thus let me sit and think. [_Widow on +her couch; while she is raving, as to herself_, TATTLEAID _softly +introduces the ladies_.] Wretched, disconsolate, as I am!... Alas! +alas! Oh! oh! I swoon! I expire! [_Faints_. + +"SECOND LADY. Pray, Mrs. Tattleaid, bring something that is cordial to +her. [_Exit_ TATTLEAID. + +"THIRD LADY. Indeed, madam, you should have patience; his lordship was +old. To die is but going before in a journey we must all take. + +_Enter_ TATTLEAID, _loaded with bottles_; THIRD LADY _takes a bottle +from her and drinks_. + +"FOURTH LADY. Lord, how my Lady Fleer drinks! I have heard, indeed, +but never could believe it of her. [_Drinks also_. + +"FIRST LADY. [_Whispers_.] But, madam, don't you hear what the town +says of the jilt, Flirt, the men liked so much in the Park? Hark +ye--was seen with him in a hackney coach. + +"SECOND LADY. Impudent flirt, to be found out! + +"THIRD LADY. But I speak it only to you. + +"FOURTH LADY. [_Whispers next woman_.] Nor I, but to no one. + +"FIFTH LADY. [_Whispers the_ WIDOW.] I can't believe it; nay, I always +thought it, madam. + +"WIDOW. Sure, 'tis impossible the demure, prim thing. Sure all the +world is hypocrisy Well, I thank my stars, whatsoever sufferings I +have, I have none in reputation. I wonder at the men; I could never +think her handsome. She has really a good shape and complexion but no +mein; and no woman has the use of her beauty without mein. Her charms +are dumb, they want utterance. But whither does distraction lead me to +talk of charms? + +"FIRST LADY. Charms, a chit's, a girl's charms! Come, let us widows be +true to ourselves, keep our countenances and our characters, and a fig +for the maids. + +"SECOND LADY. Ay, since they will set up for our knowledge, why should +not we for their ignorance? + +"THIRD LADY. But, madam, o' Sunday morning at church, I curtsied to +you and looked at a great fuss in a glaring light dress, next pew. +That strong, masculine thing is a knight's wife, pretends to all the +tenderness in the world, and would fain put the unwieldly upon us for +the soft, the languid. She has of a sudden left her dairy, and sets up +for a fine town lady; calls her maid Cisly, her woman speaks to her by +her surname of Mrs. Cherryfist, and her great foot-boy of nineteen, +big enough for a trooper, is stripped into a laced coat, now Mr. Page +forsooth. + +"FOURTH LADY. Oh, I have seen her. Well, I heartily pity some people +for their wealth; they might have been unknown else--you would die, +madam, to see her and her equipage: I thought her horses were ashamed +of their finery; they dragged on, as if they were all at plough, and +a great bashful-look'd booby behind grasp'd the coach, as if he had +never held one. + +"FIFTH LADY. Alas! some people think there is nothing but being fine +to be genteel; but the high prance of the horses, and the brisk +insolence of the servants in an equipage of quality are inimitable. + +"FIRST LADY. Now you talk of an equipage, I envy this lady the beauty +she will appear in a mourning coach, it will so become her complexion; +I confess I myself mourned for two years for no other reason. Take up +that hood there. Oh, that fair face with a veil! [_They take up her +hood_. + +"WIDOW. Fie, fie, ladies. But I have been told, indeed, black does +become-- + +"SECOND LADY. Well, I'll take the liberty to speak it, there is young +Nutbrain has long had (I'll be sworn) a passion for this lady; but +I'll tell you one thing I fear she'll dislike, that is, he is younger +than she is. + +"THIRD LADY. No, that's no exception; but I'll tell you one, he is +younger than his brother. + +"WIDOW. Talk not of such affairs. Who could love such an unhappy +relict as I am? But, dear madam, what grounds have you for that idle +story? + +"FOURTH LADY. Why he toasts you and trembles where you are spoke of. +It must be a match. + +"WIDOW. Nay, nay, you rally, you rally; but I know you mean it kindly. + +"FIRST LADY. I swear we do. + +[TATTLEAID _whispers the_ WIDOW. + +"WIDOW. But I must beseech you, ladies, since you have been so +compassionate as to visit and accompany my sorrow, to give me the only +comfort I can now know, to see my friends cheerful, and to honour an +entertainment Tattleaid has prepared within for you. If I can find +strength enough I'll attend you; but I wish you would excuse me, for +I have no relish of food or joy, but will try to get a bit down in my +own chamber. + +"FIRST LADY. There is no pleasure without you. + +"WIDOW. But, madam, I must beg of your ladyship not to be so importune +to my fresh calamity as to mention Nutbrain any more. I am sure there +is nothing in it. In love with me, quotha!" + +[WIDOW _is led away. Exeunt_ LADIES. + +Thus runs the comedy, trippingly as the tongue of a gay _raconteur_. +Sometimes the scenes are exaggerated, sometimes the characters may be +overdrawn, but the satire is true, and the wit is of the best. +Take, for instance, the picture reproduced above. Are not its +colours--albeit bold and merciless--tinged with the redeeming hue +of naturalness? And of you, fair daughters of Eve (if any of you +condescend to read these pages), let the author ask one impertinent +little question: Is there not something in the conversation of Dick +Steele's First Lady, or his Second Lady, or all the other Ladies, +which suggests the charity and intellectuality that doth hedge in an +afternoon tea? + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE BARTON BOOTHS + + + "Sweet are the charms of her I love, + More fragrant than the damask rose; + Soft as the down of turtle-dove, + Gentle as winds when zephyr blows; + Refreshing as descending rains, + On sun-burnt climes, and thirsty plains." + +Thus rhapsodised the great Barton Booth, who could write harmless +poetry when the cares of acting did not press too hard upon him. In +this case the verses were addressed to the object of his passion, a +lady who seems to have been, at first, a trifle parsimonious in her +smiles; for, in another song intended for the same siren, the lover +asks: + + "Can then a look create a thought + Which time can ne'er remove? + Yes, foolish heart, again thou'rt caught, + Again thou bleed'st for Love. + + "She sees the conquest of her eyes, + Nor heals the wounds she gave; + She smiles when'er my blushes rise, + And, sighing, shuns her Slave. + + "Then, Swain, be bold! and still adore her + Still the flying fair pursue: + Love, and friendship, still implore her, + Pleading night and day for you." + +[Illustration: BARTON BOOTH] + +Who was this "flying fair" that the swain pursued with such despairing +fervour? Nance Oldfield? Nay, there was no romance there, for while +Booth could make the most exquisite stage love to the actress, he +never carried that love beyond the mimic world. Rather was it the +lovely Mistress Santlow, that dancing bit of sunshine, who turned the +heads of many an amorous spectator, and had enough of the temptress +about her to lead a mighty warrior from the path of domestic +constancy, and bring a Secretary of State almost to the verge of +matrimony.[A] She seemed the apotheosis of grace, did this merry, +moving Hester, and when she forsook the art she so delightfully +adorned, and took to the "legitimate," there were not a few among her +admirers who regretted the change. "They mourned," says Dr. Doran, "as +if Terpsichore herself had been on earth to charm mankind, and had +gone never to return. They remembered, longed for, and now longed in +vain for that sight which used to set a whole audience half distraught +with delight, when in the very ecstacy of her dance, Santlow contrived +to loosen her clustering auburn hair, and letting it fall about such +a neck and shoulders as Praxiteles could more readily imagine than +imitate, danced on, the locks flying in the air, and half-a-dozen +hearts at the end of every one of them." + +[Footnote A: The Duke of Marlborough and Secretary Craggs +respectively.] + +At the end of one of those locks was the throbbing heart of Barton +Booth, which he had completely lost in watching the auburn hair and +the poetic movements of the _coryphée:_ + + "But now the flying fingers strike the lyre, + The sprightly notes the nymph inspire. + She whirls around! she bounds! she springs! + As if Jove's messenger had lent her wings. + + "Such were her lovely limbs, so flushed her charming face + So round her neck! her eyes so fair! + So rose her swelling chest! so flow'd her amber hair! + While her swift feet outstript the wind, + And left the enamor'd God of Day behind." + +Certes, Booth was in love when he wrote this eulogy. + +But however sprightly and deftly did this charmer pirouette, she could +not deny herself the luxury of appearing as a regular actress. Her +first venture in this direction was as the Eunuch of "Valentinian," +wherein she donned boy's attire, and was much more successful in +masculine garb than have been not a few better artists. From this +part to that of Dorcas Zeal in Shadwell's play, "The Fair Quaker of +Deal,"[A] was but a step, and a step, be it said, which for the moment +consoled the public for her desertion from the ballet. According to +Cibber, Santlow was the happiest incident in the fortune of the play, +and the Laureate tells us that she was "then in the full bloom of what +beauty she might pretend to."[B] He adds that "before this she had +only been admired as the most excellent dancer, which perhaps might +not a little contribute to the favourable reception she now met with +as an actress in this character which so happily suited her figure and +capacity: the gentle softness of her voice, the composed innocence +of her aspect, the modesty of her dress, the reserv'd deceny of her +gesture, and the simplicity of the sentiments that naturally fell from +her, made her seem the amiable maid she represented. In a word, not +the enthusiastick Maid of Orleans was more serviceable of old to the +French army when the English had distressed them, than this fair +Quaker was at the head of that dramatick attempt upon which the +support of their weak society depended." + +[Footnote A: Produced at Drury Lane in February, 1710.] + +[Footnote B: It might appear from this remark of Colley's that the +Santlow was not over handsome. Yet if a picture taken from life does +not belie her the dancer was most fair to look upon.] + +This "weak society" was the new company recruited by William Collier +for Drury Lane Theatre, and wherein could be found, in addition to the +light-limbed Hester, such players as her adoring swain, Barton Booth, +Theophilus Keen, George Powell, Francis Leigh, Mrs. Bradshaw and Mrs. +Knight. Colley was at that time (1710) in opposition to Drury, his +interest lying with the Hay market management, and it is very evident +that the success of the "Fair Quaker"--a success made in face of the +counter attraction furnished by the long trial of Dr. Sacheverel--went +sorely against the grain with him.[A] The fact was that things at the +Hay market were not flourishing, and the prosperity enjoyed by the +Drury Lane comedy--and the Sacheverel show--seemed tantalising to +bear. + +[Footnote A: Shadwell evidently had Cibber in mind when he wrote in +the preface to the "Fair Quaker of Deal": "This play was written +about three years since, and put into the hands of a famous comedian +belonging to the Haymarket Playhouse, who took care to beat down the +value of it so much as to offer the author to alter it fit to appear +on the stage, on condition he might have half the profits of the third +day; that is as much as to say, that it may pass for one of his, +according to custom. The author not agreeing to this reasonable +proposal, it lay in his hands till the beginning of this winter, when +Mr. Booth read it, and liked it, and persuaded the author that, with a +little alteration, it would please the town."] + +Even in after years Colley grew bitter in thinking of the "Fair +Quaker," and could not help indulging in a dig at its expense when +he came to write the "Apology." He likewise paid his satirical +compliments to the new-fangled Italian opera which was given at the +Haymarket during the season of 1709-10, on the days when the regular +dramatic company did not appear. The opera had already proved a +drawing attraction, but at the time here mentioned the popular +interest in the performances had fallen off, and the dear and ever +fickle public, of high and low degree, prefered either Drury Lane or +the trial of Sacheverel to the artistic delights of music and the +drama at the rival house. And so Cibber plaintively sighs. + +"The truth is, that this kind of entertainment [opera] being so +entirely sensual, it had no possibility of getting the better of our +reason but by its novelty; and that novelty could never be supported +but by an annual change of the best voices, which, like the finest +flowers, bloom but for a season, and when that is over are only dead +nosegays. From this natural cause we have seen within these two years +even Farinelli singing to an audience of five and thirty pounds, and +yet, if common fame may be credited, the same voice, so neglected in +one country, has in another had charms sufficient to make that crown +sit easy on the head of a Monarch, which the jealousy of politicians +(who had their views in his keeping it) fear'd, without some such +extraordinary amusement, his Satiety of Empire might tempt him a +second time to resign."[A] + +[Footnote A: The monarch alluded to was evidently Victor Amadeus, King +of Sardinia. The tenor Farinelli (whose real name was Carlo Broschi) +was born in the dukedom of Modena in 1705, and died 1782.] + +That Cibber knew something of the wrangles which inevitably follow in +the wake of an operatic troupe may be seen from the next paragraph: + +"There is, too, in the very species of an Italian singer such an +innate, fantastical pride and caprice, that the government of them +(here at least) is almost impracticable. This distemper, as we were +not sufficiently warn'd or apprized of, threw our musical affairs into +perplexities we knew not easily how to get out of. There is scarce +a sensible auditor in the Kingdom that has not since that time had +occasion to laugh at the several instances of it. But what is still +more ridiculous, these costly canary birds have sometimes infested the +whole body of our dignified lovers of musick with the same childish +animosities." + +It was merely an illustration of the melancholy fact that the heavenly +maid of music is too often attended by the handmaiden of discord. But +to continue: + +"Ladies have been known," says Colley, "to decline their visits upon +account of their being of a different musical party. Caesar and Pompey +made not a warmer division in the Roman Republick than those heroines, +their country women, the Faustina and Cuzzoni, blew up in our +commonwealth of academical musick by their implacable pretentions to +superiority.[A] And while this greatness of soul is their unalterable +virtue, it will never be practicable to make two capital singers of +the same sex do as they should do in one opera at the same time! No, +tho' England were to double the sums it has already thrown after them. +For even in their own country, where an extraordinary occasion has +called a greater number of their best to sing together, the mischief +they have made has been proportionable; an instance of which, if I am +rightly informed, happen'd at Parma, where upon the celebration of +the marriage of that Duke, a collection was made of the most eminent +voices that expence or interest could purchase, to give as complete an +opera as the whole vocal power of Italy could form. + +[Footnote A: Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni Hasse, whose +famous rivalry in 1726 and 1727 is here referred to, were singers +of remarkable powers. Cuzzoni's voice was a soprano, her rival's a +mezzo-soprana, and while the latter excelled in brilliant execution, +the former was supreme in pathetic expression. Dr. Burney("History of +Music," iv. 319) quotes from M. Quanta the statement that so keen was +their supporter's party spirit, that when one party began to applaude +their favourite, the other party hissed!--R.W. LOWE, "Notes to the +Apology."] + +"But when it came to the proof of this musical project, behold! what +woful work they made of it! every performer would be a Caesar or +Nothing; their several pretentions to preference were not to be +limited within the laws of harmony; they would all choose their own +songs, but not more to set off themselves than to oppose or deprive +another of an occasion to shine. Yet any one would sing a bad song, +provided nobody else had a good one, till at last they were thrown +together like so many feather'd warriors, for a battle-royal in a +cock-pit, where every one was oblig'd to kill another to save himself! +What pity it was these froward misses and masters of musick had not +been engag'd to entertain the court of some King of Morocco, that +could have known a good opera from a bad one! With how much ease would +such a director have brought them to better order? But alas! as it has +been said of greater things, + + "'Suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit.' + +"Imperial Rome fell by the too great strength of its own citizens! So +fell this mighty opera, ruin'd by the too great excellency of its +singers! For, upon the whole, it proved to be as barbarously bad as if +Malice itself had composed it." + +It was a pity, no doubt, that the light of opera shone but dimly at +the Haymarket, yet the ill wind which almost extinguished that light +blew a blessing towards the nimble Santlow. For the dear creature +prospered exceeding well as Dorcas Zeal; the heart of the public waxed +warm toward the ex-dancer, and so did the cardiac organ of Barton +Booth. A few years later Booth married the charmer, and she, having +become virtuous and prim, made the remainder of his life a bed of +domestic roses. + +And now for the brief story of Booth's dignified career. Barton came +of good English stock, and his father, with a true British desire to +rule the destinies of his family, mapped out a clerical life for the +boy. But the latter had no thought of the pulpit, and from the time +that he acted in the "Andria" of Terence, at Westminster School, his +hope was all for the stage. 'Tis very easy to applaud that hope now; +perhaps his relations looked upon it as a temptation offered by the +Evil One. When he reached the mature age of seventeen, and had orders +to begin his university training, what does the youth do but run away +from home, and, taking the theatrical bull by the horns, appear on the +Dublin boards. + +"He first apply'd to Mr. Betterton, then to Mr. Smith, two celebrated +actors," says Chetwood, "but they decently refused him for fear of the +resentment of his family. But this did not prevent his pursuing the +point in view; therefore he resolv'd for Ireland, and safely arrived +in June 1698. His first rudiments Mr. Ashbury[A] taught him, and his +first appearance was in the part of Oroonoko, where he acquitted +himself so well to a crowded audience, that Mr. Ashbury rewarded him +with a present of five guineas, which was the more acceptable as his +last shilling was reduced to brass (as he inform'd me). But an odd +accident fell out upon this occasion. It being very warm weather, in +his last scene of the play, as he waited to go on, he inadvertently +wiped his face, that, when he enter'd, he had the appearance of a +chimney-sweeper (his own words). At his entrance he was surprised at +the variety of noises he heard in the audience (for he knew not what +he had done), that a little confounded him, till he received an +extraordinary clap of applause, which settled his mind. The play was +desir'd for the next night of acting, when an actress fitted a crape +to his face, with an opening proper for the mouth, and shap'd in form +for the nose; but, in the first scene, one part of the crape slip'd +off. 'And zounds!' said he (he was a little apt to swear), 'I look'd +like a magpie. When I came off, they lamp-black'd me for the rest of +the night, that I was flayed before it could be got off again.'"[B] + +[Footnote A: Joseph Ashbury, Master of the Revels, in Ireland, actor, +and manager of the theatre in Dublin.] + +[Footnote B: Chetwood adds in a footnote: "The composition for +blackening the face are ivory-black and pomatum, which is, with some +pains, clean'd with fresh butter." "Oroonoko" was what we would now +call a "black face" part.] + +But Booth was too much in earnest to be daunted by anything so +trifling as the misplacing of a mask. He studied hard, despite a +youthful liking for the jolly joys of Bacchus, and soon made for +himself an enviable position upon the Dublin stage. For the youth had +all the qualities that went toward the formation of a fine actor; he +possessed keen dramatic instinct, poetic sensibility, a beautiful +voice, a handsome person, and, above all, a dogged ambition. In after +years, when his health began to fail and the sweets of success had, +perhaps, become a trifle cloying, the tragedian often went through +a part in a perfunctory manner.[A] But those early days in Ireland +marked the sunrise of his genius--a time no less noble, in its +freshness and promise, than the later glory of the noontide--and there +was in his performance nothing but youthful ardour and devotion. + +[Footnote A: He (Booth) would play his best to a single man in the pit +whom he recognised as a playgoer, and a judge of acting; but to an +unappreciating audience he could exhibit an almost contemptuous +disinclination to exert himself. On one occasion of this sort he was +made painfully sensible of his mistake and a note was addressed to him +from the stage-box, the purport of which was to know whether he +was acting for his own diversion or in the service and for the +entertainment of the public? On another occasion, with a thin house +and a cold audience, he was languidly going through one of his usually +grandest impersonations, namely, Pyrrhus. At his very dullest scene he +started into the utmost brilliancy and effectiveness. His eye had just +previously detected in the pit a gentleman, named Stanyan, the +friend of Addison and Steele, and the correspondent of the Earl of +Manchester. Stanyan was an accomplished man and a judicious critic. +Booth played to him, with the utmost care and corresponding success. +"No, no!" he exclaimed, as he passed behind the scenes, "I will not +have it said at Button's that Barton Booth is losing his powers!"--DR. +DORAN.] + +With that ardour, only whetted by his popularity in Dublin, Barton +travelled to London (1701), and there offered respectful incense at +the shrine of Betterton. 'Twas a shrine at which the public still +worshipped; and when Roscius extended a helping hand to the kneeling +postulant, and brought him before the patrons of Lincoln's Inn Fields, +the success of Booth seemed assured. The latter never forgot the +generosity and kindly interest of his idol, and he spoke with all the +sincerity of gratitude when he once said: "When I acted the Ghost with +Betterton (as Hamlet), instead of my awing him, he terrified me. But +divinity hung round that man." Had he been of an egotistic mould +Barton might have added, that his Ghost was considered hardly less +effective than the Hamlet of the mighty Betterton. + +For a decade, or longer, Booth went on this prosperous way, gaining in +favour with the theatre-goers, and increasing his artistic resources. +During this period he married the daughter of a baronet, and she lived +for six years, but not long enough to witness his triumphs in the +"Distressed Mother" and the classic "Cato." As Chetwood well said, +"Pyrrhus in the 'Distressed Mother' placed him in the seat of Tragedy, +and Cato fixed him there." We have already read something of the +"Distressed Mother," and of the production of Addison's tragedy, and +so there is no need to linger over the episodes which caused Booth to +be acclaimed Betterton's logical successor. + +We remember, likewise, that the original Cato was admitted to a share +in the management of Drury Lane, as a result of the increased fame +accruing from his impersonation of the grand old Roman. It was an +incident, into which politics entered not a little; there were wires +to pull, and Lord Bolingbroke had his hand in the theatrical pie. "To +reward his merit," chronicles Chetwood, "he (Booth) was joined in +the patent, tho' great interest was made against him by the other +patentees, who, to prevent his soliciting his patrons at Court, +then at Windsor, gave out plays every night, where Mr. Booth had a +principal part. Notwithstanding this step, he had a chariot and six of +a nobleman's waiting for him at the end of every play, that whipt him +the twenty miles in three hours, and brought him back to the business +of the theatre the next night." + +"He told me," adds the writer, "not one nobleman in the Kingdom had so +many sets of horses at command as he had at that time, having no less +than eight; the first set carrying him to Hounslow from London, ten +miles; and the next set, ready waiting with another chariot to +carry him to Windsor." Evidently the inspired Barton, with all his +high-flown talent, had an eye for the main chance. In this respect he +resembled one greater than he--David Garrick. + +Like Garrick, too, the enterprising Booth had his Peg Woffington, in +the pretty person of Susan Mountford, a daughter of the great Mistress +Verbruggen. He never placed a wedding-ring upon a finger of this young +woman, but he gave her his protection after the death of the baronet's +daughter, and continued to do so until the fragile creature ran off +with a craven fellow named Minshull. This Minshull made away with over +£3000, the sum of Susan's savings,[A] and the erring woman, alike +false to her virtue and the destroyer of that virtue, ended her +darkening days amid the clouds of insanity. + +[Footnote A: In the year 1714, they (Booth and Susan) bought several +tickets in the State Lottery, and agreed to share equally whatever +fortune might ensue. Booth gained nothing; the lady won a prize of +5000 pounds, and kept it. His friends counselled him to claim half the +sum, but he laughingly remarked that there had never been any but +a verbal agreement on the matter; and since the result had been +fortunate for his friend, she should enjoy it all.--Dr. DORAN.] + +The picture is far prettier with Hester Santlow leaping into the +affections of the actor, and finally marrying him according to the law +of the land. She loved the great man tenderly, ministered to his wants +with a wifely devotion which would hardly suit the "New Woman," and +when he was wont to eat too much (for he had given up the flowing +bowl[A] and must cultivate some other species of gluttony), the +ex-dancer would have the dinner-table removed. + +[Footnote A: Booth told Cibber that he "had been for sometime too +frank a lover of the bottle; but having had the happiness to observe +into what contempt and distress Powel had plung'd himself by the same +vice, he was so struck with the terror of his example, that he fix'd +a resolution (which from that time to the end of his days he strictly +observed) of utterly reforming it." And Colley adds; "An uncommon act +of philosophy in a young man!"] + +Strange, is it not, that the wife who could be so full of constancy, +and all the other virtues, previously lived a notoriously loose +existence? For it had been the fate of Santlow to stand continually in +the glare of that fierce light which beats upon the stage, and +never, perhaps, did she give the town more to talk about than by her +celebrated _rencontre_ with Captain Montague. The story affords a +glimpse of the free-and-easy manners which sometimes prevailed in +theatres, and will bear the telling, ere we bid farewell to its fair +heroine. + +"About the year 1717," writes Cibber, "a young actress of a desirable +person (Santlow), sitting in an upper box at the Opera, a military +gentleman (Montague) thought this a proper opportunity to secure a +little conversation with her, the particulars of which were probably +no more worth repeating than it seems the Damoiselle then thought them +worth listening to; for, notwithstanding the fine things he said +to her, she rather chose to give the Musick the preference of her +attention. This indifference was so offensive to his high heart, +that he began to change the Tender into the Terrible, and, in short, +proceeded at last to treat her in a style too grossly insulting for +the meanest female ear to endur unresented. Upon which, being beaten +too far out of her discretion, she turn'd hastily upon him with an +angry look and a reply which seem'd to set his merit in so low a +regard, that he thought himself oblig'd in honour to take his time to +resent it. + +"This was the full extent of her crime, which his glory delay'd no +longer to punish than 'till the next time she was to appear upon the +stage. There, in one of her best parts, wherein she drew a favourable +regard and approbation from the audience, he, dispensing with the +respect which some people think due to a polite assembly, began to +interrupt her performance with such loud and various notes of mockery, +as other young men of honour in the same place had sometimes made +themselves undauntedly merry with. Thus, deaf to all murmurs or +entreaties of those about him, he pursued his point, even to throwing +near her such trash as no person can be suppos'd to carry about him +unless to use on so particular an occasion. + +"A gentlemen then behind the scenes,[A] being shock'd at his unmanly +behaviour, was warm enough to say, that no man but a fool or a bully +could be capable of insulting an audience or a woman in so monstrous a +manner. The former valiant gentleman, to whose ear the words were soon +brought by his spies, whom he had plac'd behind the scenes to observe +how the action was taken there, came immediately from the pit in a +heat, and demanded to know of the author of those words if he was the +person that spoke them? to which he calmly reply'd, that though he had +never seen him before, yet since he seem'd so earnest to be satisfy'd, +he would do him the favour to own, that indeed the words were his, and +that they would be the last words he should chuse to deny whoever they +might fall upon. + +[Footnote A: Secretary Craggs.] + +"To conclude, their dispute was ended the next morning in Hyde Park, +where the determin'd combatant who first ask'd for satisfaction was +obliged afterwards to ask his life too; whether he mended it or not, I +have not yet heard; but his antagonist in a few years afterwards died +in one of the principal posts of the Government." + +There were no more such scenes after Santlow became Mrs. Barton Booth. +Everything was respectability, and the voice of the turtle-dove +appears to have been heard in the home of the happy couple. Yea, the +husband waxed ecstatic after several years of married bliss, once more +tuned his lyre, and burst forth into verses, wherein he set forth, +among other things: + + "Happy the hour when first our souls were joined! + The social virtues and the cheerful mind + Have ever crowned our days, beguiled our pain; + Strangers to discord and her clamorous train," &c. + +The lines suggest placidity of existence, and placid, indeed, was the +married life of Booth, barring his moments of ill-health. When his +career is compared to that of certain other players, it stands out in +rather pleasant relief, by virtue of its even tenor and prosperity. It +was free from the vicissitudes which have waylaid the paths of equally +great artists, and the current of his genius ran on without a ripple, +save that of sickness. There was one direction, however, wherein Booth +found variety and excitement, and that was in the wondrous diversity +of parts which he assumed. In tragedy, his work took a wide range, +going all the way from Laertes to Othello, while he sallied forth now +and again into the field of comedy, and emerged therefrom with honour. +He did not, to be sure, distinguish himself so brilliantly as a +comedian as he did in tragic garb, yet he wooed Thalia in a genteel +way which seldom failed to please. Nay, it is chronicled that he +impersonated capon-lined Falstaff in a fashion that amused even +phlegmatic Queen Anne. But the actor of long ago thought nothing of +such catholicity in art. He often worked like a horse, that he might +later play like a god.[A] + +[Footnote A: To show the versatility of Booth it need only be +mentioned that his parts (among many not herein named) included the +Ghost, Laertes, Horatio and the Prince in "Hamlet," Dick in "The +Confederacy," Captain Worthy in the "Fair Quaker of Deal," Pyrrhus, +Cato, Young Bevil in the "Conscious Lovers," Tamerlane, Oronooko, +Jaffier, Othello, King Lear, Hotspur, Wildair, Sir Charles Easy, +Falstaff, Cassio, Macbeth, Banquo, Lennox, Henry VIII. and Cinna. Few +living players can match such a repertoire.] + +Perhaps the most annoying disturbance which ever came into Booth's +theatrical life, and not a great disturbance at that, was the jealousy +which existed between Wilks and himself. Wilks was impetuous, bad +tempered and crotchety, and it is possible that the envy was, +originally, rather of his own making. But be that as it may, Booth +suffered many a pang from the successes of the more dashing Wilks, and +the latter never lost an opportunity of thwarting his associate. We +remember how the commonplace Mills was pushed forward, with the idea +of hiding the genius of Barton, and Cibber refers more than once to +this short-sighted policy of Wilks. "And yet, again," he writes, +"Booth himself, when he came to be a manager, would sometimes suffer +his judgment to be blinded by his inclination to actors whom the town +seem'd to have but an indifferent opinion of." And thereupon Colley +asks "another of his old questions"--viz., "Have we never seen the +same passions govern a Court! How many white staffs and great places +do we find, in our histories, have been laid at the feet of a monarch, +because they chose not to give way to a rival in power, or hold a +second place in his favour? How many Whigs and Tories have changed +their parties, when their good or bad pretentions have met with a +check to their higher preferment?" + +The fact is that there was never any artistic sympathy between the two +distinguished actors. Booth could play comedy, and play it quite well, +but his soul was all for tragedy. On the other hand, while Wilks knew +how to tread the sombre paths of high drama (he even made a creditable +Hamlet), the comedian looked with more regard upon his own peculiar +vein of work, the impersonation of the graceful, the genteel, and the +elegantly picturesque. In one way the latter proved more generous +than his rival. "It might be imagin'd," runs on Cibber, "from the +difference of their natural tempers, that Wilks should have been more +blind to the excellencies of Booth than Booth was to those of Wilks; +but it was not so. Wilks would sometimes commend Booth to me; but when +Wilks excell'd the other was silent."[A] + +[Footnote A: During Booth's inability to act ...Wilks was called upon +to play two of his parts: Jaffier and Lord Hastings in "Jane Shore." +Booth was, at times, in all other respects except his power to go +on the stage, in good health, and went among the players for his +amusement. His curiosity drew him to the playhouse on the nights when +Wilks acted these characters, in which himself had appeared with +uncommon lustre. All the world admired Wilks except his brother +manager: amidst the repeated bursts of applause which he extorted, +Booth alone continued silent.--DAVIES.] + +But all these petty heartburnings and jealousies were buried in the +grave of Wilks. That incomparable player, whose sprightliness seemed +to defy the grim tyrant, and who could act the lithesome youth upon +the stage even though he had to hobble to his hackney-coach when the +piece was ended, made his last exit in the autumn of 1732. Booth +followed on the same long journey in the May of 1733, after an illness +during which the great patient was dosed with crude mercury, bled, +plastered, blistered, and otherwise helped onward to his death. +Verily, it is a wonder that the physicians of old did not extinguish +the whole human race. + +The still attractive Santlow (or rather Mrs. Booth) survived the +tragedian, and her sorrow may have been assuaged by the remembrance +that she was left the sole heir of her husband. "I have considered my +circumstances," wrote Booth in his will, "and finding upon a strict +examination that all I am now possessed of does not amount to +two-thirds of the fortune my wife brought me on the day of our +marriage, together with the yearly additions and advantages since +arising from her laborious employment on the stage during twelve years +past, I thought myself bound by honesty, honour, and gratitude due to +her constant affection, not to give away any part of the remainder of +her fortune at my death"; and with that eloquent stroke of the pen +the testator cut off with nothing a sister and a brother whom he had +sufficiently helped during his lifetime. + +Surely so noble an actor deserves an epitaph. Perhaps none could be +more worthy than this estimate of the man, made by Aaron Hill: "He had +learning to understand perfectly whatever it was his part to speak, +and judgment to know how far it agreed or disagreed with his +character. Hence arose a peculiar grace which was visible to every +spectator, tho' few were at the pains of examining into the cause of +their pleasure. He could soften, or slide over, with a kind of elegant +negligence, the improprieties in a part he acted; while, on the +contrary, he would dwell with energy upon the beauties, as if he +exerted a latent spirit which had been kept back for such an occasion, +that he might alarm, waken, and transport, to those places only, where +the dignity of his own good sense could be supported with that of his +author." + +If some players of to-day will take a lesson by this description, the +judicious Booth need not have lived in vain. His soul, like that of +the late lamented John Brown, will go marching on. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE FADING OF A STAR + + +The life of Mistress Oldfield, like that of Barton Booth, was cast in +pleasant places. Yet the lady had her little agitations, and found +them, no doubt, rather an incentive to existence than otherwise. Take, +for instance, the excitement surrounding the production, during the +Drury Lane season of 1711-12, of Mrs. Centlivre's play, "The Perplexed +Lovers." To the lovely Nance was entrusted the duty of speaking the +epilogue thereto, wherein Prince Eugene (at that time on a visit to +England) and the Duke of Marlborough were lauded in the true spirit of +ancient flunkeyism. But the animosity which politics doth breed ran +high, and the first night of the performance went by without the +introduction of the eulogy. Some patriots objected to the sentiments +which it contained, and the managers were cautious. As for Oldfield, +she might have been cautious, too, and with reason, for she had +received letters threatening her with dire pains and penalties if she +spoke the offending words, but Anne stood ready to deliver them at +whatsoever time the patentees might name. So when the second night of +"The Perplexed Lovers" arrived, and a special licence from the Lord +Chamberlain had been secured, the actress came valiantly forward and +spoke the epilogue with success. Perhaps Eugene of Savoy thanked Mrs. +Oldfield--let us hope that he did--and it is at least certain that +after the withdrawal of the play his Highness sent Mrs. Centlivre an +elaborate gold snuff-box.[A] + +[Footnote A: Speaking of the beau's outfit in the reign of Queen Anne, +Ashton says: "His snuff-box, too, was an object of his solicitude, +though, as the habit of taking snuff had but just come into vogue, +there were no collections of them, and no beau had ever dreamed of +criticizing a box, as did Lord Petersham, as, 'a nice Summer box.' ... +Those of the middle classes were chiefly of silver, or tortoise-shell, +or mother-of-pearl; sometimes of 'aggat' or with a 'Moco Stone' in +the lid. A beau would sometimes either have a looking-glass, or the +portrait of a lady inside the lid."] + +And who was the gratified Centlivre? A masculine looking female with +a talent for play-writing, a tendency to appear in men's parts, and +last, but far from least, a nice little wen adorning her left eyelid. +She possessed other characteristics too, but those herein mentioned +are the only ones which stand out clearly after the lapse of nearly +two centuries. This doughty woman had been married twice before she +went to Windsor, where she once more entered into the matrimonial +noose, or rather, again inveigled an unfortunate into that treacherous +device. The visit to the seat of Royalty was signalised by her acting +of Alexander the Great, but from the atmosphere of Kings and Queens +she passed without a murmur to the humbler air of a kitchen. In other +words, she married a Mr. Centlivre, chief cook to her well-fed Majesty +Queen Anne; and the mean-livered Pope would refer to her, later on, as +"the cook's wife in Buckingham Court." She might, indeed, be a cook's +wife, but she knew how to write with vivacity, and produced many an +entertaining play. Among them were "A Bold Stroke for a Wife" and "The +Wonder," that comedy which Garrick would so relish in after years. + +The nature of the aforesaid "Wonder" was explained in the satirical +reflection of the secondary title, "A Woman Keeps a Secret!" And Mrs. +Centlivre had this to say in her epilogue, upon the mooted question of +feminine loquacity: + + "Keep a secret, says a beau, + And sneers at some ill-natured wit below; + But faith, if we should tell but half we know, + There's many a spruce young fellow in this place, + Wou'd never presume to show his face; + Women are not so weak, what e'er men prate; + How many tip-top beaux have had the fate, + T'enjoy from mama's secrets their estate! + Who, if her early folly had made known, + Had rid behind the coach that's now their own." + +Mrs. Oldfield received fresh cause for nervousness, had she been of +a timid temperament, when, some years later, during the season of +1717-18, Cibber's political play of "The Non-Juror" was brought out. +The comedy was a blow aimed at the Jacobites and the Pretender, who +had met with such disastrous treatment in the rebellion of 1715, and +was a skilfully-wrought laudation of the Hanoverian dynasty.[A] + +[Footnote A: The piece was published and dedicated to George I., who +acknowledged his sense of the honour by paying to Cibber the sum of +two hundred guineas. That the good old prejudice against the stage was +still in full force, despite the march of liberal ideas, is clearly +shown in the author's address to the King: "Your comedians, Sir, are +an unhappy society, whom some severe heads think wholly useless, +and others, dangerous to the young and innocent. This comedy is, +therefore, an attempt to remove that prejudice, and to show what +honest and laudable uses may be made of the theatre, when its +performances keep close to the true purposes of its institution." +Cibber also referred to himself as "the lowest of your subjects from +the theatre," and thus mirrored the servility of the golden Georgian +era.] + +"About this time," writes Cibber, telling of the play's presentation, +"Jacobitism had lately exerted itself by the most unprovoked rebellion +that our histories have handed down to us since the Norman Conquest; +I therefore thought that to set the authors and principles of that +desperate folly in a fair light, by allowing the mistaken consciences +of some their best excuse, and by making the artful Pretenders to +Conscience as ridiculous as they were ungratefully wicked, was a +subject fit for the honest satire of comedy, and what might, if it +succeeded, do honour to the stage by showing the valuable use of +it. And considering what numbers at that time might come to it as +prejudiced spectators, it may be allow'd that the undertaking was not +less hazardous than laudable." + +And hazardous the project certainly seemed; for, while the uprising in +the interests of the Pretender had been ostensibly crushed, the spirit +of "divine right" was as strong as ever; there were many worthy +gentlemen who drank secret bumpers to the King--"over the water"--and +the Hanoverian throne had as yet a precarious lodgment on English +soil. It was expected, therefore, that these malcontents would have +anything but an appetite for the theatrical feast set before them in +the shape of the "Non-Juror," and would prove none the less disgusted +because the play happened to be an adaptation of Molière's "Tartuffe." +As the latter comedy depicts a self-indulgent, crawling hypocrite of +the worst type, and is an eloquent sermon against sham, it may be +imagined that the Jacobites were not over enthusiastic when they +learned that the moral of "Tartuffe" was to be applied to them.[A] + +[Footnote A: Tartuffe, according to French tradition, is a caricature +of the famous Père la Chaise (Confessor to Louis Quatorze), who had +a weakness for the pleasures of the table, including truffles +(tartuffes). After Cibber's day, Molière's play was again adapted into +English, under the title of "The Hypocrite."] + +"Upon the hypocrisy of the French character," explains Cibber (who +probably looked upon France, Papacy, and the Pretender as a threefold +combination of sin), "I engrafted a stronger wickedness, that of an +English Popish priest lurking under the doctrine of our own Church +to raise his fortune upon the ruin of a worthy gentleman, whom his +dissembled sanctity had seduc'd into the treasonable cause of a Roman +Catholick outlaw. How this design, in the play, was executed, I refer +to the readers of it; it cannot be mended by any critical remarks I +can make in its favour. Let it speak for itself." + +The "Non-juror" did speak for itself, too, and that in decided +terms.[A] The production entailed the scorn of the disaffected, and +made for Cibber some lasting enemies, but the friends of government +were strong, Cibber was lauded for his loyalty, and the comedy +achieved a triumph. The vivacity of Oldfield's acting, as Maria, +delighted all beholders, and it was further agreed that the +performance was well given throughout. In the cast were Booth, Mills, +Wilks, Cibber, Mrs. Porter, Mrs. Oldfield, and Walker. The Walker here +mentioned was at that time a very young man, not over seventeen or +eighteen years of age, and made his first hit in the "Non-juror." When +the "Beggars' Opera" was subsequently brought out, the mighty Quin +refused to play the highwayman, Macheath, and Walker willingly took +the part and made therein the reputation of his life. But success +turned his unsteady head. "He follow'd Bacchus too ardently, insomuch +that his credit was often drown'd upon the stage, and, by degrees, +almost render'd him useless." Ungrammatical, but to the point, Mr. +Chetwood. + +[Footnote A: The success surpassed even expectation. It raised against +Cibber a phalanx of implacable foes--foes who howled at everything +of which he was afterwards the author; but it gained for him his +advancement to the poet-laureateship, and an estimation which caused +some people to place him, for usefulness to the cause of true +religion, on an equality with the author of "The Whole Duty of +Man."--DR. DORAN.] + +This Walker was a genius in a small fashion. He possessed an +expressive face and manly figure, with a native buoyancy and humour +which stood him in good stead in the character of Macheath, while he +had the further gift of dominating a tragic scene with an assumption +of tyrannic fire which must have been greatly admired by the +theatre-goers of his time. He could not sing, to be sure, when he +graced the "Beggars' Opera," but the audiences took the will for the +deed, applauded his gaiety of action, and quickly pardoned his lyric +short-comings. We are equally lenient nowadays to many a comic-opera +comedian, so called. Chetwood tells us that Walker was the supposed +author of two pieces, "The Quakers' Opera," and a tragedy styled "The +Fate of Villainy." The latter, it appears, "he brought to Ireland +in the year 1744, and prevailed on the proprietors (of the Dublin +theatre) to act it, under the title of 'Love and Loyalty.' The second +night was given out for his benefit; but not being able to pay in half +the charge of the common expences, the doors were order'd to be kept +shut." + +"But, I remember," laconically adds Chetwood, "few people came to ask +the reason. However, I fear this disappointment hasten'd his death; +for he survived it but three days; dying in the 44th year of his age, +a martyr to what often stole from him a good understanding." + + "He who delights in drinking out of season, + Takes wond'rous pains to drown his manly reason." + +Poor Walker! He is not the only actor who has perished from a mixture +of wine and injured vanity. + +To return to the success of the "Non-juror," Cibber writes: "All the +reason I had to think it no bad performance was, that it was acted +eighteen days running, and that the party that were hurt by it (as I +have been told) have not been the smallest number of my back friends +ever since. But happy was it for this play that the very subject +was its protection; a few smiles of silent contempt were the utmost +disgrace that on the first day of its appearance it was thought safe +to throw upon it; as the satire was chiefly employ'd on the enemies of +the Government, they were not so hardy as to own themselves such by +any higher disapprobation or resentment."[A] + +[Footnote A: The production of the "Non-juror" added Pope to the list +of Cibber's enemies, the great poet's father having been a Non-juror.] + +Yet Cibber's enemies never failed to make things unpleasant for him if +they could do so without running too great a risk. There was Nathaniel +Mist, for instance, who published a Jacobite paper called _Mist's +Weekly Journal_. This vindictive gentleman, whose political heresies +once brought him to the pillory and a prison, began a systematic +attack upon the actor-manager, and kept up the warfare for fifteen +years. Once, when Colley was ill of a fever, Mist made up his +journalistic mind that his enemy must have the good taste to depart +the pleasures of this life. So he inserted the following paragraph in +his paper: + +"Yesterday died Mr. Colley Cibber, late Comedian of the Theatre Royal, +notorious for writing the 'Non-juror.'" + +The very day that this obituary appeared Cibber crawled out of the +house, sick-faced but convalescent, and read the notice with keen +interest. Whether he was amused thereat, or dubbed the joke a poor +one, is a matter which he does not record, but he tells us that he +"saw no use in being thought to be thoroughly dead before his time," +and "therefore had a mind to see whether the town cared to have him +alive again." + +"So the play of the 'Orphan' being to be acted that day, I quietly +stole myself into the part of the Chaplain, which I had not been +seen in for many years before. The surprise of the audience at my +unexpected appearance on the very day I had been dead in the news, and +the paleness of my looks, seem'd to make it a doubt whether I was not +the ghost of my real self departed. But when I spoke, their wonder +eas'd itself by an applause; which convinc'd me they were then +satisfied that my friend Mist had told a fib of me. Now, if simply to +have shown myself in broad life, and about my business, after he had +notoriously reported me dead, can be called a reply, it was the only +one which his paper while alive ever drew from me." + +The Jacobites could not interfere with the triumph of the "Non-juror," +but they were shrewd enough to bide their time. That time came, as +they thought, in 1728, when there was unfolded at Drury Lane a comedy +which became famous under the title of "The Provoked Husband." The +rough draft of the play was the work of Vanbrugh, now dead, but the +dialogue and situations had been elaborated by Cibber. Here was a +chance, therefore, to damn the latter writer, and accordingly the +malcontents repaired to the theatre, hissed the performance roundly, +and then went home with the comfortable reflection that they had +gotten their revenge. Their revenge, however, was shortlived, for the +general public liked the comedy, and soon flocked to its rescue. + +"On the first day of 'The Provok'd Husband,'" says the Poet Laureate, +"ten years after the 'Non-juror' had appear'd, a powerful party, not +having the fear of publick offence or private injury before their +eyes, appeared most impetuously concerned for the demolition of it; in +which they so far succeeded that for some time I gave it up for lost; +and to follow their blows, in the publick papers of the next day it +was attack'd and triumph'd over as a dead and damn'd piece: a swinging +criticism was made upon it in general invective terms, for they +disdain'd to trouble the world with particulars; their sentence, it +seems, was proof enough of its deserving the fate it had met with. +But this damn'd play was, notwithstanding, acted twenty-eight nights +together, and left off at a receipt of upwards of a hundred and forty +pounds; which happened to be more than in fifty years before could be +then said of any one play whatsoever." + +The play was saved, and no one contributed more importantly to that +result than did Mistress Oldfield. Her acting as the heroine, Lady +Townley, was pronounced superb, and though she had now drifted into +middle-age--was she not over forty?--Nance still seemed, on the stage +at least, the incarnation of youth and grace. Is there not a certain +English actress, now living (one, by-the-way, who plays Nance Oldfield +and suggests her as well) who defies the inroads of time with equal +carelessness.[A] + +[Footnote A: In the wearing of her person she (Oldfield) was +particularly fortunate; her figure was always improving to her +thirty-sixth year, but her excellence in acting was never at a stand. +And Lady Townley, one of her last new parts, was a proof that she was +still able to do more, if more could have been done for her.--GENEST.] + +Lady Townley is nothing more or less than a glorified, matured edition +of Lady Betty Modish, and, therefore, a very charming woman. Charming, +at least, on the boards of a theatre, if not upon the floor of a real +drawing-room. For she has a love of pleasure which can hardly be +called domestic, and her unfortunate husband, who would see more of +her, is tempted to ask, in the very first scene of the play: "Why did +I marry?" "While she admits no lover," Lord Townley soliloquises [for +my lady is at least virtuous] "she thinks it a greater merit still, in +her chastity, not to care for her husband; and while she herself is +solacing in one continual round of cards and good company, he, poor +wretch, is left at large to take care of his own contentment. 'Tis +time, indeed, some care were taken, and speedily there shall be. Yet +let me not be rash. Perhaps this disappointment of my heart may +make me too impatient; and some tempers, when reproach'd, grow more +untractable." + +And when Lady Townley, all graces and ribbons and laces, enters on the +scene my lord meekly asks: + + + * * * * * + +"Going out so soon after dinner, madam?" + +"Lady T. Lord, my Lord, what can I possibly do at home? + +"Lord T. What does my sister, Lady Grace, do at home? + +"Lady T. Why, that is to me amazing! Have you ever any pleasure at +home? + +"Lord T. It might be in your power, madam, I confess, to make it a +little more comfortable to me. + +"Lady T. Comfortable! and so, my good lord, you would really have a +woman of my rank and spirit, stay at home to comfort her husband! +Lord! what notions of life some men have! + +"Lord T. Don't you think, madam, some ladies notions are full as +extravagant?" + +"Lady T. Yes, my lord, when tame doves live cooped within the pen of +your precepts, I do think 'em prodigious indeed! + +"Lord T. And when they fly wild about this town, madam, pray what must +the world think of 'em then? + +"Lady T. Oh! this world is not so ill bred as to quarrel with any +woman for liking it. + +"Lord T. Nor am I, madam, a husband so well bred as to bear my wife's +being so fond of it; in short, the life you lead, madam-- + +"Lady T. Is, to me, the pleasantest life in the world. + +"Lord T. I should not dispute your taste, madam, if a woman had a +right to please nobody but herself. + +"Lady T. Why, whom would you have her please? + +"Lord T. Sometimes her husband. + +"Lady T. And don't you think a husband under the same obligation? + +"Lord T. Certainly. + +"Lady T. Why then we are agreed, my lord. For if I never go abroad +till I am weary of being at home--which you know is the case--is it +not equally reasonable, not to come home till one's a weary of being +abroad? + +"Lord T. If this be your rule of life, madam, 'tis time to ask you one +serious question. + +"Lady T. Don't let it be long acoming then, for I am in haste. + +"Lord T. Madam, when I am serious, I expect a serious answer. + +"Lady T. Before I know the question? [Here we can imagine Wilks, who +played Lord Townley, waxing exceeding wroth at my lady.] + +"Lord T. Pshah--have I power, madam, to make you serious by intreaty? + +"Lady T. You have. + +"Lord T. And you promise to answer me sincerely. + +"Lady T. Sincerely. + +"Lord T. Now then recollect your thoughts, and tell me seriously why +you married me? + +"Lady T. You insist upon truth, you say? + +"Lord T. I think I have a right to it. + +"Lady T. Why then, my lord, to give you at once a proof of my +obedience and sincerity--I think--I married--to take off that +restraint that lay upon my pleasures, while I was a single woman. + +"Lord T. How, madam, is any woman under less restraint after marriage +than before it? + +"Lady T. O my lord! my lord! they are quite different creatures! Wives +have infinite liberties in life that would be terrible in an unmarried +woman to take. + +"Lord T. Name one. + +"Lady T. Fifty, if you please. To begin then, in the morning--a +married women may have men at her toilet, invite them to dinner, +appoint them a party in a stage box at the play; engross the +conversation there, call 'em by their Christian names; talk louder +than the players;--from thence jaunt into the city--take a frolicksome +supper at an India house--perhaps, in her _gaieté de coeur_, toast a +pretty fellow--then clatter again to this end of the town, break with +the morning into an assembly, crowd to the hazard table, throw a +familiar levant upon some sharp lurching man of quality, and if he +demands his money, turn it off with a loud laugh, and cry--you'll owe +it to him, to vex him! ha! ha! + +"Lord T. [_Aside_]. Prodigious!" + +It is related that so magnificently did Oldfield describe the +pleasures of a woman of fashion that the audience echoed, with a +different meaning, Lord Townley's comment, and showered her with +plaudits. "Prodigious," indeed, must have been her acting. + +Nance was even more captivating, as the comedy progressed, and nowhere +did she shine more brilliantly, it may be supposed, than in the +following scene: + +"Lady Townley. Well! look you, my lord; I can bear it no longer! +Nothing still but about my faults, my faults! An agreeable subject +truly! + +"Lord T. Why, madam, if you won't hear of them, how can I ever hope to +see you mend them? + +"Lady T. Why, I don't intend to mend them--I can't mend them--you know +I have try'd to do it an hundred times, and--it hurts me so--I can't +bear it! + +"Lord T. And I, madam, can't bear this daily licentious abuse of your +time and character. + +"Lady T. Abuse! astonishing! when the universe knows, I am never +better company than when I am doing what I have a mind to! But to +see this world! that men can never get over that silly spirit of +contradiction--why, but last Thursday, now--there you wisely amended +one of my faults, as you call them--you insisted upon my not going to +the masquerade--and pray, what was the consequence? Was not I as cross +as the Devil, all the night after? Was not I forc'd to get company at +home? And was it not almost three o'clock in the morning before I +was able to come to myself again? And then the fault is not mended +neither--for next time I shall only have twice the inclination to go: +so that all this mending and mending, you see, is but darning an old +ruffle, to make it worse than it was before. + +"Lord T. Well, the manner of women's living, of late, is +insupportable, and one way or other-- + +"Lady T. It's to be mended, I suppose! Why, so it may, but then, my +dear lord, you must give one time--and when things are at worst, you +know, they may mend themselves! Ha! ha! + +"Lord T. Madam, I am not in a humour, now, to trifle. + +"Lady T. Why, then, my lord, one word of fair argument--to talk with +you, your own way now--you complain of my late hours, and I of your +early ones--so far we are even, you'll allow--but pray which gives us +the best figure, in the eye of the polite world, my active, spirited +three in the morning, or your dull, drowsy, eleven at night? Now, +I think, one has the air of a woman of quality, and t'other of a +plodding mechanic, that goes to bed betimes, that he may rise early, +to open his shop--faugh! + +"LORD T. Fy, fy, madam! is this your way of reasoning? 'Tis time to +wake you then. 'Tis not your ill hours alone that disturb me, but as +often the ill company that occasion those ill hours. + +"LADY T. Sure I don't understand you now, my lord; what ill company do +I keep? + +"LORD T. Why, at best, women that lose their money, and men that win +it! or, perhaps, men that are voluntary bubbles at one game, in hopes +a lady will give them fair play at another.[A] Then that unavoidable +mixture with known rakes, conceal'd thieves, and sharpers in +embroidery--or what, to me, is still more shocking, that herd of +familiar chattering, crop-ear'd coxcombs, who are so often like +monkeys, there would be no knowing them asunder, but that their tails +hang from their head, and the monkey's grows where it should do. + +[Footnote A: Women gambled as passionately as did the men in the early +part of the eighteenth century. Ashton quotes the following from the +"Gaming Lady": "She's a profuse lady, tho' of a miserly temper, whose +covetous disposition is the very cause of her extravagancy; for the +desire of success wheedles her ladyship to play, and the incident +charges and disappointments that attend it make her as expensive to +her husband as his coach and six horses. When an unfortunate night has +happen'd to empty her cabinet, she has many shifts to replenish her +pockets. Her jewels are carry'd privately into Lombard street, and +fortune is to be tempted the next night with another sum, borrowed +of my lady's goldsmith at the extortion of a pawnbroker; and if that +fails, then she sells off her wardrobe, to the great grief of her +maids; stretches her credit amongst those she deals with, or makes her +waiting woman dive into the bottom of her trunk, and lug out her green +net purse full of old Jacobuses, in hopes to recover her losses by a +turn of fortune, that she may conceal her bad luck from the knowledge +of her husband."] + +"Lady T. And a husband must give eminent proof of his sense that +thinks their powder puffs dangerous! + +"Lord T. Their being fools, madam, is not always the husband's +security; or, if it were, fortune sometimes gives them advantages +might make a thinking woman tremble. + +"Lady T. What do you mean? + +"Lord T. That women sometimes lose more than they are able to pay; +and, if a creditor be a little pressing, the lady may be reduced to +try if, instead of gold, the gentleman will accept of a trinket. + +"Lady T. My lord, you grow scurrilous; you'll make me hate you. I'll +have you to know I keep company with the politest people in town, and +the assemblies I frequent are full of such. + +"Lord T. So are the churches--now and then. + +"Lady T. My friends frequent them, too, as well as the assemblies. + +"Lord T. Yes; and would do it oftener if a groom of the chambers there +were allowed to furnish cards to the company. + +"Lady T. I see what you drive at all this while. You would lay an +imputation on my fame to cover your own avarice! I might take any +pleasures, I find, that were not expensive. + +"Lord T. Have a care, madam; don't let me think you only value your +chastity to make me reproachable for not indulging you in everything +else that's vicious. I, madam, have a reputation, too, to guard that's +dear to me as yours. The follies of an ungoverned wife may make the +wisest man uneasy; but 'tis his own fault if ever they make him +contemptible. + +"Lady T. My lord, you make a woman mad! + +"Lord T. You'd make a man a fool. + +"Lady T. If heaven has made you otherwise, that won't be in my power. + +"Lord T. Whatever may be in your inclination, madam, I'll prevent you +making me a beggar, at least. + +"Lady T. A beggar! Croesus, I'm out of patience. I won't come home +till four to-morrow morning. + +"Lord T. That may be, madam; but I'll order the doors to be locked at +twelve. + +"Lady T. Then I won't come home till to-morrow night. + +"Lord T. Then, madam, you shall never come home again." [_Exit_ Lord +Townley. + + * * * * * + +In the end, of course, Lady Townley is converted to the pleasures of +domesticity, and ends the comedy by saying: + + "So visible the bliss, so plain the way, + How was it possible my sense could stray? + But now, a convert to this truth I come, + That married happiness is never found from home." + +Perhaps when Oldfield delivered these virtuous lines, she thought to +herself that happiness, even of the unmarried kind, was never very far +away from home. But she forgot sentiment when she came back to give +the breezy epilogue: + + "Methinks I hear some powder'd critics say + Damn it, this wife reform'd has spoil'd the play! + The coxcombs should have drawn her more in fashion, + Have gratify'd her softer inclination, + Have tipt her a gallant, and clinch'd the provocation. + But there our bard stops short: for 'twere uncivil + T'have made a modern belle all o'er a devil! + He hop'd in honor of the sex, the age + Would bear one mended woman--on the stage." + +Continuing, after diverse moral reflections, Nance made this appeal to +her hearers: + + "You, you then, ladies, whose unquestion'd lives + Give you the foremost fame of happy wives, + Protect, for its attempt, this helpless play; + Nor leave it to the vulgar taste a prey; + Appear the frequent champion of its cause, + Direct the crowd, and give yourselves applause." + +"Zounds, madam," cries a beau who is ogling a woman of quality in a +stage box, "they say Anne Oldfield will never see forty-two again, but +I'll warrant you, madam, she looks not a day older than yourself." And +the woman of quality, who is over forty, bows at the compliment, as +well she may. Bellchambers records that Lady Townley was universally +regarded as Oldfield's _ne plus ultra_ in acting. "She slided so +gracefully into the foibles, and displayed so humorously the excesses, +of a fine woman too sensible of her charms, too confident in her +strength, and led away by her pleasures, that no succeeding Lady +Townley arrived at her many distinguished excellencies in the +character."[A] And the writer goes on to say that "by being a welcome +and constant visitor to families of distinction, Mrs. Oldfield +acquired a graceful carriage in representing women of high rank, and +expressed their sentiments in a manner so easy, natural, and flowing, +that they appeared to be of her own genuine utterance." Pray, sir, +what is there so remarkable about that? Had not Anne as gentle blood +as that which coursed through the veins of many a lady of rank? + +[Footnote A: The Lady Townleys of later years included Mrs. Spranger +Barry and the imposing Mistress Yates.] + +But the triumphs of the first Lady Townley were fast drawing to a +close; the curtain would soon be rung down for ever upon that radiant +face, with its angelic smile and dancing eyes, and the stage, whether +Drury Lane or mother earth would see her no more. Ill health began to +follow in her once careless path, and there were times when the duties +of acting seemed almost unbearable. Yet she was a brave woman, and +kept a merry front to the audience, although she was obliged, on +occasions, to turn away from the house, that it might not see the +tears of pain flowing down her cheek. Here was a combination of comedy +and tragedy, with a vengeance! + +Still Nance went on, delighting the town as of yore, and putting into +her last original rôle, that of Sophonisba, a fire which breathed not +of sickness nor failing powers. At last there came a day when she +played her final part, and left Drury Lane only to be driven tenderly +home to her death-bed. Think of the pathos of this last performance, +this giving up of all that was most alluring in life, and let none of +us poor moderns presume to analyse the heart-broken woman's feelings +as she said good-bye to the dear old theatre. Anne worshipped art, and +the public, in turn, worshipped her; she had acted her many parts, +laughed, cried, sinned, and waxed exceeding happy--and now she was to +be cast out into the darkness. Must she not have shivered when she +entered her house in Lower Grosvenor Street for the last time? Poor +lovable creature! There could be for her now neither lights, nor +laughter, nor applause; all would be gloom and weariness to the end. + +During the weeks which followed, the invalid received the untiring +attentions of Mistress Saunders, who once upon a time played bouncing +chambermaids, but who had, for ten years past, acted as a feminine +_valet de chambre_ and general factotum for Mrs. Oldfield. And if ever +she played well, 'twas in thus ministering to the dying wants of one +who in health had been ever helpful and generous. Pope, who hated the +great comedienne in his petty, spiteful way, has immortalised the +intimacy of mistress and handmaiden in these lines: + + "'Odious! in woolen? 'twould a saint provoke!' + Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke. + 'No, let a charming Chintz and Brussels lace + Wrap my cold limbs and shade my lifeless face; + One would not sure be frightful when one's dead, + And, Betty, give this cheek a little red.'"[A] + +[Footnote A: Pope's Moral Essays.] + +These ante-mortem directions had no further reality than the +imagination of the poet; but it is easy to believe that the woman who +had set the fashions for the town these many years would have enough +of the feminine instinct left, though Death waited without, to plan a +becoming funeral garb. Woollen, forsooth! It was a beastly law which +required that all the dead should be buried in that material, and +Nance shuddered when she thought of it.[A] + +[Footnote A: The dead were then buried in woolen, which was rendered +compulsory by the Acts 30 Car. II. c. 3 and 36 ejusdem c. i. The first +act was entitled "an Act for the lessening the importation of linnen +from beyond the seas, and the encouragement of the woolen and paper +manufactures of the kingdome." It prescribed that the curate of every +parish, shall keep a register to be provided at the charge of the +parish, wherein to enter all burials and affidavits of persons being +buried in woolen; the affidavit to be taken by any justice of the +peace, mayor, or such like chief officer in the parish where the +body was interred.... It imposed a fine of five pounds for every +infringement, one half to go to the informer, and the other half to +the poor of the parish. This Act was only repealed by 54 Geo. III. +c. 108, or in the year 1815. The material used was flannel, and +such interments are frequently mentioned in the literature of the +time.--ASHTON.] + +Soon there were no more thoughts of dress, no more plaintive shudders +at the iniquity of the woollen act. The eyes whose kindly light had +illumined the dull soul of many a playgoer, closed for ever on the +23rd of October, 1730, and the incomparable Oldfield was no more. +Surely old Sol did not shine on London that day; surely he must +have mourned behind the leaden English sky for one of his fairest +daughters, that child of sunshine who brightened the world by her +presence, and made her exit, as she did her entrance, with a smile. + +After the breath had left Anne's still lovely body, Mistress Saunders +dressed her in a "Brussels lace head-dress, a Holland shift, with +tucker and double ruffles of the same lace, and a pair of new +kid gloves." It was, no doubt, the costume which the actress had +commanded, and handsome she must have looked, as many an admirer took +one last glimpse of the remains prior to the interment in Westminster +Abbey. All that was mortal of Oldfield lay in state in the Jerusalem +Chamber,[A] and then there followed an elaborate funeral, at which +were present a host of great men, and the two sons of the deceased, +Mr. Maynwaring and young Churchill. Were these sons less grieved when +they found that their mother had left them the major part of her +fortune? + +[Footnote A: The solemn lying in state of an English actress in the +Jerusalem Chamber, the sorrow of the public over their lost favourite, +and the regret of friends in noble, or humble, but virtuous homes, +where Mrs. Oldfield had been ever welcome, contrast strongly with the +French sentiment towards French players. It has been already said, +that as long as Clairon exercised the power, when she advanced to the +footlights, to make the (then standing) pit recoil several feet, by +the mere magic of her eyes, the pit, who enjoyed the terror as a +luxury, flung crowns to her, and wept at the thought of losing her; +but Clairon infirm was Clairon forgotten, and to a decaying actor or +actress a French audience is the most merciless in the world. The +brightest and best of them, as with us, died in the service of the +public. Monfleury, Mondory, and Bricourt died of apoplexy, brought on +by excess of zeal. Molière, who fell in harness, was buried with +less ceremony than some favourite dog. The charming Lecouvreur, that +Oldfield of the French stage, whose beauty and intellect were the +double charm which rendered theatrical France ecstatic, was hurriedly +interred within a saw-pit. Bishops might be exceedingly interested in, +and unepiscopally generous to living actresses of wit and beauty, but +the prelates smote them with a "Maranatha!" and an "Avaunt ye!" when +dead.--DR. DORAN.] + +Later on Savage was inspired to write that famous poem of his, +unsigned though it appeared, on the virtues of the departed: + + "Oldfield's no more! and can the Muse forbear + O'er Oldfield's grave to shed a grateful tear? + Shall she, the Glory of the British Stage, + Pride of her sex, and wonder of the age; + Shall she, who, living, charm'd th' admiring throng, + Die undistinguish'd, and not claim a song? + No; feeble as it is, I'll boldly raise + My willing voice, to celebrate her praise, + And with her name immortalise my lays. + Had but my Muse her art to touch the soul, + Charm ev'ry sense, and ev'ry pow'r control, + I'd paint her as she was--the form divine, + Where ev'ry lovely grace united shine; + A mein majestic, as the wife of Jove; + An air as winning as the Queen of Love: + In ev'ry feature rival charms should rise, + And Cupid hold his empire in her eyes. + A soul, with ev'ry elegance refin'd, + By nature, and the converse of mankind: + Wit, which could strike assuming folly dead; + And sense, which temper'd ev'ry thing she said; + Judgment, which ev'ry little fault could spy; + But candour, which would pass a thousand by: + Such finish'd breeding, so polite a taste, + Her fancy always for the fashion pass'd; + Whilst every social virtue fir'd her breast + To help the needy, succour the distrest; + A friend to all in misery she stood, + And her chief pride was plac'd in doing good. + But now, my Muse, the arduous task engage, + And shew the charming figure on the stage; + Describe her look, her action, voice and mein, + The gay coquette, soft maid, or haughty Queen. + So bright she shone, in ev'ry different part, + She gain'd despotic empire o'er the heart; + Knew how each various motion to control, + Sooth ev'ry passion, and subdue the soul: + As she, o'er gay, or sorrowful appears, + She claims our mirth, or triumphs in our tears. + When Cleopatra's form she chose to wear + We saw the monarch's mein, the beauty's air; + Charmed with the sight, her cause we all approve, + And, like her lover, give up all for love: + Anthony's fate, instead of Caesar's choose, + And wish for her we had a world to lose. + But now the gay delightful scene is o'er, + And that sweet form must glad our world no more; + Relentless death has stop'd the tuneful tongue, + And clos'd those eyes, for all, but death, too strong, + Blasted that face where ev'ry beauty bloom'd, + And to Eternal Rest the graceful Mover doom'd." + +In writing which Savage almost justified his existence. + + + + +APPENDIX + + +THEATRICAL CLAPTRAP + +(_What Addison has to say about it in the "Spectator_") + +No. 44. FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1711. + + "Tu quid ego, et populus mecum desideret, audi." + HOR. ARS POET. ver. 153. + + "Now hear what ev'ry auditor expects." + ROSCOMMON. + + +Among the several artifices which are put in practice by the poets to +fill the minds of an audience with terror, the first place is due to +thunder and lightning, which are often made use of at the descending +of a god, or the rising of a ghost, at the vanishing of a devil, or +at the death of a tyrant. I have known a bell introduced into several +tragedies with good effect; and have seen the whole assembly in a very +great alarm all the while it has been ringing. But there is nothing +which delights and terrifies our English theatre so much as a ghost, +especially when he appears in a bloody shirt. A spectre has very often +saved a play, though he has done nothing but stalked across the stage, +or rose through a cleft of it, and sunk again without speaking one +word. There may be a proper season for these several terrors; and when +they only come in as aids and assistances to the poet, they are not +only to be excused, but to be applauded. Thus the sounding of the +clock in "Venice Preserved" makes the hearts of the whole audience +quake, and conveys a stronger terror to the mind than it is possible +for words to do. The appearance of the ghost in "Hamlet" is a +masterpiece in its kind, and wrought up with all the circumstances +that can create either attention or horror. The mind of the reader is +wonderfully prepared for his reception by the discourses that precede +it. His dumb behaviour at his first entrance strikes the imagination +very strongly; but every time he enters he is still more terrifying. +Who can read the speech with which young Hamlet accosts him without +trembling? + + "_Hor_. Look, my Lord, it comes! + + "_Ham_. Angels and ministers of grace defend us! + Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd; + Bring with thee airs from heav'n, or blasts from hell; + Be thy events wicked or charitable; + Thou com'st in such a questionable shape + That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet, + King, Father, Royal Dane. Oh I answer me. + Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell + Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death, + Have burst their cerements? Why the sepulchre, + Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd, + Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws + To cast thee up again? What may this mean? + That thou dead corse again in complete steel + Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon, + Making night hideous?" + +I do not therefore find fault with the artifices above mentioned, +when they are introduced with skill and accompanied by proportionable +sentiments and expressions in the writings. + +For the moving of pity our principal machine is the handkerchief; and +indeed in our common tragedies we should not know very often that the +persons are in distress by anything they say, if they did not from +time to time apply their handkerchiefs to their eyes. Far be it from +me to think of banishing this instrument of sorrow from the stage; I +know a tragedy could not subsist without it: all that I would contend +for is to keep it from being misapplied. In a word, I would have the +actor's tongue sympathise with his eyes. + +A disconsolate mother, with a child in her hand, has frequently drawn +compassion from the audience, and has therefore gained a place in +several tragedies. A modern writer, that observed how this had took +in other plays, being resolved to double the distress, and melt +his audience twice as much as those before him had done, brought a +princess upon the stage with a little boy in one hand and a girl +in the other. This too had a very good effect. A third poet being +resolved to outwrite all his predecessors, a few years ago introduced +three children with great success: and, as I am informed, a young +gentleman, who is fully determined to break the most obdurate hearts, +has a tragedy by him where the first person that appears upon the +stage is an afflicted widow in her mourning weeds, with half a dozen +fatherless children attending her, like those that usually hang about +the figure of Charity. Thus several incidents that are beautiful in a +good writer become ridiculous by falling into the hands of a bad one. + +But among all our methods of moving pity or terror, there is none so +absurd and barbarous, and which more exposes us to the contempt and +ridicule of our neighbours, than that dreadful butchering of one +another, which is very frequent upon the English stage. To delight in +seeing men stabbed, poisoned, racked, or impaled is certainly the sign +of a cruel temper; and as this is often practised before the British +audience, several French critics, who think these are grateful +spectacles to us, take occasion from them to represent us as a people +who delight in blood. It is indeed very odd to see our stage strewed +with carcasses in the last scenes of a tragedy; and to observe in the +wardrobe of the playhouse several daggers, poniards, wheels, bowls for +poison, and many other instruments of death. Murders and executions +are always transacted behind the scenes in the French theatre, which +in general is very agreeable to the manners of a polite and civilised +people; but as there are no exceptions to this rule on the French +stage, it leads them into absurdities almost as ridiculous as that +which falls under our present censure. I remember in the famous play +of Corneille, written upon the subject of the Horatii and Curiatii, +the fierce young hero, who had overcome the Curiatii one after another +(instead of being congratulated by his sister for his victory, being +upbraided by her for having slain her lover), in the height of his +passion and resentment kills her. If anything could extenuate so +brutal an action, it would be the doing of it on a sudden, before the +sentiments of nature, reason, or manhood could take place in him. +However, to avoid public bloodshed, as soon as his passion is wrought +to its height, he follows his sister the whole length of the stage, +and forbears killing her till they are both withdrawn behind the +scenes. I must confess, had he murdered her before the audience, the +indecency might have been greater; but as it is, it appears very +unnatural, and looks like killing in cold blood. To give my opinion +upon this case, the fact ought not to have been represented, but to +have been told if there was any occasion for it. + +It may not be unacceptable to the reader to see how Sophocles has +conducted a tragedy under the like delicate circumstance. Orestes was +in the same condition with Hamlet in Shakespeare, his mother having +murdered his father and taken possession of his kingdom in conspiracy +with her adulterer. That young prince, therefore, being determined to +revenge his father's death upon those who filled his throne, conveys +himself by a beautiful stratagem into his mother's apartment, with a +resolution to kill her. But because such a spectacle would have been +too shocking to the audience, this dreadful resolution is executed +behind the scenes. The mother is heard calling to her son for mercy, +and the son answering her that she showed no mercy to his father; +after which she shrieks out that she is wounded, and by what follows +we find that she is slain. I do not remember that in any of our plays +there are speeches made behind the scenes, though there are other +instances of this nature to be met with in those of the ancients: +and I believe my reader will agree with me that there is something +infinitely more affecting in this dreadful dialogue between the +mother and her son behind the scenes than could have been in anything +transacted before the audience. Orestes immediately after meets the +usurper at the entrance of his palace; and by a very happy thought of +the poet avoids killing him before the audience, by telling him that +he should live some time in his present bitterness of soul before he +would despatch him, and by ordering him to retire into that part +of the palace where he had slain his father, whose murder he would +revenge in the very same place where it was committed. By this means +the poet observes that decency, which Horace afterwards established as +a rule, of forbearing to commit parricides or unnatural murders before +the audience. + + "Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet," + ARS POET. ver. 185. + + "Let not Medea draw her murd'ring knife, + And spill her children's blood upon the stage." + ROSCOMMON. + +The French have therefore refined too much upon Horace's rule, who +never designed to banish all kinds of death from the stage; but only +such as had too much horror in them, and which would have a better +effect upon the audience when transacted behind the scenes. I would +therefore recommend to my countrymen the practice of the ancient +poets, who were very sparing of their public executions, and rather +chose to perform them behind the scenes, if it could be done with as +great an effect upon the audience. At the same time, I must observe, +that though the devoted persons of the tragedy were seldom slain +before the audience, which has generally something ridiculous in it, +their bodies were often produced after their death, which has always +in it something melancholy or terrifying; so that the killing on the +stage does not seem to have been avoided only as an indecency, but +also as an improbability. + + "Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet: + Aut humana palam coquat exta nefarius Atreus; + Aut in avem Progne vertatur, Cadmus in anguem. + Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi." + HOR. ARS. POET. ver. 185. + + "Medea must not draw her murd'ring knife, + Nor Atreus there his horrid feast prepare; + Cadmus and Progne's metamorphoses + (She to a swallow turn'd, he to a snake); + And whatsoever contradicts my sense, + I hate to see, and never can believe." + ROSCOMMON. + +I have now gone through the several dramatic inventions which are made +use of by the ignorant poets to supply the place of tragedy, and +by the skilful to improve it; some of which I could wish entirely +rejected, and the rest to be used with caution. It would be an +endless task to consider comedy in the same light, and to mention the +innumerable shifts that small wits put in practice to raise a laugh. +Bullock in a short coat, and Norris in a long one, seldom failed of +this effect.[A] In ordinary comedies a broad and a narrow brimmed +hat are different characters. Sometimes the wit of a scene lies in a +shoulder-belt, and sometimes in a pair of whiskers. A lover running +about the stage, with his head peeping out of a barrel, was thought a +very good jest in King Charles the Second's time, and invented by +one of the first wits of the age.[B] But because ridicule is not so +delicate as compassion, and because the objects that make us laugh are +infinitely more numerous than those that make us weep, there is a much +greater latitude for comic than tragic artifices, and by consequence a +much greater indulgence to be allowed them. + +[Footnote A: Addison's comment about these two favourite comedians +shows that then, as now, eccentricity in dress formed a popular +species of stage humour.] + +[Footnote B: Sir George Etherege, in his comedy of "The Comical +Revenge, or Love in a Tub."] + + + + +COMIC EPILOGUES + +_(From the "Spectator")_ + +No. 338. FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1712. + + "Nil fuit unquam + Sic dispar sibi." + HOR. SAT. III. 1-1-18. + + "Made up of nought but inconsistencies." + + +I find the tragedy of the "Distressed Mother" is published to-day. The +author of the prologue,[A] I suppose pleads an old excuse I have read +somewhere, of "being dull with design;" and the gentleman who writ the +epilogue[B] has, to my knowledge, so much of greater moment to value +himself upon, that he will easily forgive me for publishing the +exceptions made against gaiety at the end of serious entertainments in +the following letter: I should be more unwilling to pardon him, than +anybody, a practice which cannot have any ill consequence, but from +the abilities of the person who is guilty of it. + +[Footnote A: Steele.] + +[Footnote B: Addison credited Budgell with the epilogue.] + +"MR. SPECTATOR,--I had the happiness the other night of sitting very +near you, and your worthy friend Sir Roger, at the acting of the new +tragedy, which you have in a late paper or two so justly recommended. +I was highly pleased with the advantageous situation fortune had given +me in placing me so near two gentlemen, from one of which I was sure +to hear such reflections on the several incidents of the play as pure +nature suggested; and from the other, such as flowed from the exactest +art and judgment; though I must confess that my curiosity led me so +much to observe the knight's reflections that I was not so well at +leisure to improve myself by yours. Nature, I found, played her part +in the knight pretty well, till at the last concluding lines she +entirely forsook him. You must know, Sir, that it is always my custom, +when I have been well entertained at a new tragedy, to make my retreat +before the facetious epilogue enters; not but that those pieces are +often very well writ, but having paid down my half-crown, and made a +fair purchase of as much of the pleasing melancholy as the poet's art +can afford me, or my own nature admit of, I am willing to carry some +of it home with me; and cannot endure to be at once tricked out of +all, though by the wittiest dexterity in the world. However, I kept my +seat the other night, in hopes of finding my own sentiments of this +matter favoured by your friend's; when, to my great surprise, I found +the knight, entering with equal pleasure into both parts, and as much +satisfied with Mrs. Oldfield's gaiety, as he had been before with +Andromache's greatness. Whether this were no more than an effect of +the knight's peculiar humanity, pleased to find at last, that, after +all the tragical doings, everything was safe and well, I do not know. +But for my own part, I must confess I was so dissatisfied, that I was +sorry the poet had saved Andromache, and could heartily have wished +that he had left her stone-dead upon the stage. For you cannot +imagine, Mr. Spectator, the mischief she was reserved to do me. I +found my soul, during the action, gradually worked up to the highest +pitch; and felt the exalted passion which all generous minds conceive +at the sight of virtue in distress. The impression, believe me, Sir, +was so strong upon me, that I am persuaded, if I had been let alone in +it, I could at an extremity have ventured to defend yourself and Sir +Roger against half a score of the fiercest Mohocks; but the ludicrous +epilogue in the close extinguished all my ardour, and made me look +upon all such noble achievements as downright silly and romantic. What +the rest of the audience felt, I cannot so well tell. For myself I +must declare, that at the end of the play I found my soul uniform, +and all of a piece; but at the end of the epilogue, it was so jumbled +together and divided between jest and earnest, that, if you will +forgive me an extravagant fancy, I will here set it down. I could +not but fancy, if my soul had at that moment quitted my body, and +descended to the poetical shades in the posture it was then in, what +a strange figure it would have made among them. They would not have +known what to have made of my motley spectre, half comic and half +tragic, all over resembling a ridiculous face, that, at the same time, +laughs on one side, and cries on the other. The only defence, I think, +I have ever heard made for this, as it seems to me the most unnatural +tack of the comic tail to the tragic head, is this, that the minds of +the audience must be refreshed, and gentlemen and ladies not sent away +to their own homes with too dismal and melancholy thoughts about them: +for who knows the consequence of this? We are much obliged indeed to +poets for the great tenderness they express for the safety of our +persons, and heartily thank them for it. But if that be all, pray, +good Sir, assure them, that we are none of us like to come to any +great harm; and that, let them do their best, we shall, in all +probability, live out the length of our days, and frequent the +theatres more than ever. What makes me more desirous to have some +reformation of this matter is, because of an ill consequence or two +attending it: for a great many of our church musicians being related +to the theatre, they have, in imitation of these epilogues, introduced +in their farewell voluntaries, a sort of music quite foreign to the +design of church-services, to the great prejudice of well-disposed +people. Those fingering gentlemen should be informed, that they ought +to suit their airs to the place and business; and that the musician is +obliged to keep to the text as much as the preacher. For want of this, +I have found by experience a great deal of mischief. For when the +preacher has often, with great piety, and art enough, handled his +subject, and the judicious clerk has with the utmost diligence called +out two staves proper to the discourse, and I have found in myself, +and in the rest of the pew, good thoughts and dispositions, they have +been all in a moment dissipated by a merry jig from the organ loft. +One knows not what further ill effects the epilogues I have been +speaking of may in time produce: but this I am credibly informed of, +that Paul Lorrain[A] has resolved upon a very sudden reformation in +his tragical dramas; and that, at the next monthly performance, he +designs, instead of a penitential psalm, to dismiss his audience with +an excellent new ballad of his own composing. Pray, Sir, do what you +can to put a stop to these growing evils, and you will very much +oblige your humble servant, + +"PHYSIBULUS." + +[Footnote A: At that time ordinary of Newgate; and who, in his +accounts of the convicts executed at Tyburn, generally represented +them as true penitents, and dying very well.] + + + + +No. 341. TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 1712. + + "--Revocate animos, maestumque timorem + Mittite--" + VIRG. AEN.I. 206. + + "Resume your courage, and dismiss your care." + DRYDEN. + + +Having, to oblige my correspondent Physibulus, printed his letter last +Friday, in relation to the new epilogue, he cannot take it amiss, if I +now publish another, which I have just received from a gentleman who +does not agree with him in his sentiments upon that matter. + +"Sir,--I am amazed to find an epilogue attacked in your last Friday's +paper, which has been so generally applauded by the town, and received +such honours as were never before given to any in an English theatre. + +"The audience would not permit Mrs. Oldfield to go off the stage the +first night till she had repeated it twice; the second night the noise +of _ancora_ was as loud as before, and she was again obliged to speak +it twice; the third night it was called for a second time; and, in +short, contrary to all other epilogues, which are dropped after the +third representation of the play, this has already been repeated nine +times. + +"I must own I am the more surprised to find this censure, in +opposition to the whole town, in a paper which has hitherto been +famous for the candour of its criticisms. + +"I can by no means allow your melancholy correspondent, that the +new epilogue is unnatural, because it is gay. If I had a mind to be +learned, I could tell him that the prologue and epilogue were real +parts of the ancient tragedy; but every one knows, that on the British +stage, they are distinct performances by themselves, pieces entirely +detached from the play, and no way essential to it. + +"The moment the play ends, Mrs. Oldfield is no more Andromache, but +Mrs. Oldfield; and though the poet had left Andromache stone-dead upon +the stage, as your ingenious correspondent phrases it, Mrs. Oldfield +might still have spoke a merry epilogue. We have an instance of this +in a tragedy where there is not only a death, but a martyrdom.[A] St. +Catherine was there personated by Nell Gwyn; she lies stone-dead upon +the stage, but, upon those gentlemen's offering to remove her body, +whose business it is to carry off the slain in our English tragedies, +she breaks out into that abrupt beginning of what was a very +ludicrous, but at the same time thought a very good epilogue:-- + + "'Hold: are you mad? you damn'd confounded dog! + I am to rise and speak the epilogue.' + +[Footnote A: "Tyrannic Love; or, the Royal Martyr." By Dryden.] + +"This diverting manner was always practised by Mr. Dryden, who, if he +was not the best writer of tragedies in his time, was allowed by every +one to have the happiest turn for a prologue or an epilogue. The +epilogues to 'Cleomenes,' 'Don Sebastian,' the 'Duke of Guise,' +'Aurengezebe,' and 'Love Triumphant,' are all precedents of this +nature. + +"I might further justify this practice by that excellent epilogue +which was spoken, a few years since, after the tragedy of 'Phaedra and +Hippolitus;'[A] with a great many others, in which the authors have +endeavoured to make the audience merry. If they have not all succeeded +so well as the writer of this, they have however shown that it was not +for want of good will. + +[Footnote A: By Edmund Neal.] + +"I must further observe, that the gaiety of it may be still the more +proper, as it is at the end of a French play; since every one knows +that nation, who are generally esteemed to have as polite a taste as +any in Europe, always close their tragic entertainments with what they +call a _petite pièce_, which is purposely designed to raise mirth, and +send away the audience well pleased. The same person who has supported +the chief character in the tragedy, very often plays the principal +part in the _petite pièce_; so that I have myself seen, at Paris, +Orestes and Lubin acted the same night by the same man. + +"Tragi-comedy, indeed, you have yourself, in a former speculation, +found fault with very justly, because it breaks the tide of the +passions, while they are yet flowing; but this is nothing at all to +the present case, where they have already had their full course. + +"As the new epilogue is written conformably to the practice of our +best poets, so it is not such an one, which, as the Duke of Buckingham +says in his 'Rehearsal,' might serve for any other play; but wholly +rises out of the occurrences of the piece it was composed for. + +"The only reason your mournful correspondent gives against this +facetious epilogue, as he calls it, is, that he has a mind to go home +melancholy. I wish the gentleman may not be more grave than wise. For +my own part, I must confess, I think it very sufficient to have the +anguish of a fictitious piece remain upon me while it is representing; +but I love to be sent home to bed in a good humour. If Physibulus is +however resolved to be inconsolable, and not to have his tears dried +up, he need only continue his old custom, and when he has had his +half-crown's worth of sorrow, slink out before the epilogue begins. + +"It is pleasant enough to hear this tragical genius complaining of the +great mischief Andromache had done him. What was that? Why, she +made him laugh. The poor gentleman's sufferings put me in mind of +Harlequin's case, who was tickled to death. He tells us soon after, +through a small mistake of sorrow for rage, that during the whole +action he was so very sorry, that he thinks he could have attacked +half a score of the fiercest Mohawks in the excess of his grief. I +cannot but look upon it as a happy accident, that a man who is so +bloody-minded in his affliction, was diverted from this fit of +outrageous melancholy. The valour of this gentleman in his distress +brings to one's memory the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance, who +lays about him at such an unmerciful rate in an old romance. I shall +readily grant him that his soul, as he himself says, would have made a +very ridiculous figure, had it quitted the body and descended to the +poetical shades in such an encounter. + +"As to his conceit of tacking a tragic head with a comic tail, in +order to refresh the audience, it is such a piece of jargon, that I +don't know what to make of it. + +"The elegant writer makes a very sudden transition from the playhouse +to the church, and from thence to the gallows. + +"As for what relates to the church, he is of opinion that these +epilogues have given occasion to those merry jigs from the organ-loft, +which have dissipated those good thoughts and dispositions he has +found in himself, and the rest of the pew, upon the singing of two +staves culled out by the judicious and diligent clerk. + +"He fetches his next thought from Tyburn; and seems very apprehensive +lest there should happen any innovations in the tragedies of his +friend Paul Lorrain. + +"In the mean time, Sir, this gloomy writer, who is so mightily +scandalised at a gay epilogue after a serious play, speaking of +the fate of those unhappy wretches who are condemned to suffer an +ignominious death by the justice of our laws, endeavours to make +the reader merry on so improper an occasion by those poor burlesque +expressions of tragical dramas and monthly performances.--I am, +Sir, with great respect, your most obedient, most humble servant, + +"PHILOMEDES." + + + + +ON DRAMATIC CRITICS + +(_Addison in the "Spectator_") + +No. 592. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1714. + + "--Studium sine divite veni." + HOR. ARS POET. 409. + + "Art without a vein." + ROSCOMMON. + + +I look upon the playhouse as a world within itself. They have lately +furnished the middle region of it with a new set of meteors, in order +to give the sublime to many modern tragedies. I was there last winter +at the first rehearsal of the new thunder,[A] which is much more deep +and sonorous than any hitherto made use of. They have a Salmonus +behind the scenes who plays it off with great success. Their +lightnings are made to flash more briskly than heretofore; their +clouds are also better furbelowed, and more voluminous; not to mention +a violent storm locked up in a great chest, that is designed for the +"Tempest." They are also provided with above a dozen showers of snow, +which, as I am informed, are the plays of many unsuccessful poets +artificially cut and shredded for that use. Mr. Rymer's "Edgar" is to +fall in snow, at the next acting of "King Lear," in order to heighten, +or rather to alleviate, the distress of that unfortunate prince; and +to serve by way of decoration to a piece which that great critic has +written against. + +[Footnote A: Mr. Dennis's new and approved method of making thunder. +Dennis had contrived this thunder for the advantage of his tragedy of +"Appius and Virginia"; the players highly approved of it, and it is +the same that is used at the present day. Notwithstanding the effect +of this thunder, however, the play was coldy received, and laid aside. +Some nights after, Dennis being in the pit at the representation of +"Macbeth," and hearing the thunder made use of, arose from his seat in +a violent passion, exclaiming with an oath, that that was his thunder. +"See (said he) how these rascals use me: they will not let my play +run, and yet they steal my thunder."--"Notes on the _Spectator_."] + +I do not indeed wonder that the actors should be such professed +enemies to those among our nation who are commonly known by the name +of critics, since it is a rule among these gentlemen to fall upon a +play, not because it is ill written, but because it takes. Several of +them lay it down as a maxim, that whatever dramatic performance has a +long run, must of necessity be good for nothing; as though the first +precept in poetry were "not to please." Whether this rule holds good +or not, I shall leave to the determination of those who are better +judges than myself; if it does, I am sure it tends very much to the +honour of those gentlemen who have established it; few of their pieces +having been disgraced by a run of three days, and most of them being +so exquisitely written, that the town would never give them more than +one night's hearing. + +I have great esteem for a true critic, such as Aristotle and Longinus +among the Greeks; Horace and Quintilian among the Romans; Boileau and +Dacier among the French. But it is our misfortune, that some, who set +up for professed critics among us, are so stupid, that they do not +know how to put ten words together with elegance or common propriety; +and withal so illiterate, that they have no taste of the learned +languages, and therefore criticise upon old authors only at second +hand. They judge of them by what others have written, and not by any +notions they have of the authors themselves. The words unity, action, +sentiment and diction, pronounced with an air of authority, give them +a figure among unlearned readers, who are apt to believe they are very +deep because they are unintelligible. The ancient critics are full +of the praises of their contemporaries; they discover beauties which +escaped the observation of the vulgar, and very often find out reasons +for palliating and excusing such little slips and oversights as were +committed in the writings of eminent authors. On the contrary, most +of the smatterers in criticism, who appear among us, make it their +business to vilify and depreciate every new production that gains +applause, to descry imaginary blemishes, and to prove, by farfetched +arguments, that what pass for beauties in any celebrated piece are +faults and errors. In short, the writings of these critics, compared +with those of the ancients, are like the works of the sophists +compared with those of the old philosophers. + +Envy and cavil are the natural fruits of laziness and ignorance; which +was probably the reason that in the heathen mythology Momus is said +to be the son of Nox and Somnus, of darkness and sleep. Idle men, who +have not been at the pains to accomplish or distinguish themselves, +are very apt to detract from others; as ignorant men are very subject +to decry those beauties in a celebrated work which they have not eyes +to discover. Many of our sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the +name of critics, are the genuine descendants of these two illustrious +ancestors. They are often led into these numerous absurdities in which +they daily instruct the people, by not considering that, first, there +is sometimes a greater judgment shown in deviating from the rules of +art than in adhering to them; and, secondly, that there is more beauty +in the works of a great genius, who is ignorant of all the rules of +art, than in the works of a little genius, who not only knows but +scrupulously observes them. + +First, we may often take notice of men who are perfectly acquainted +with all the rules of good writing, and notwithstanding choose to +depart from them on extraordinary occasions. I could give instances +out of all the tragic writers of antiquity who have shown their +judgment in this particular; and purposely receded from an established +rule of the drama, when it has made way for a much higher beauty +than the observation of such a rule would have been. Those who have +surveyed the noblest pieces of architecture and statuary, both ancient +and modern, know very well that there are frequent deviations from +art in the works of the greatest masters, which have produced a much +nobler effect than a more accurate and exact way of proceeding could +have done. This often arises from what the Italians call the _gusto +grande_ in these arts, which is what we call the sublime in writing. + +In the next place, our critics do not seem sensible that there is more +beauty in the works of a great genius, who is ignorant of the rules of +art, than in those of a little genius who knows and observes them. It +is of those men of genius that Terrence speaks in opposition to the +little artificial cavillers of his time: + + "Quorum aemulari expotat negligentiam + Potius quam istorum obscuram diligentiam." + AND. PROL. 20. + +"Whose negligence he would rather imitate, than these men's obscure +diligence." + +A critic may have the same consolation in the ill success of his play +as Dr. South tells us a physician has at the death of a patient, +that he was killed _secundum artem_. Our inimitable Shakespeare is a +stumbling-block to the whole tribe of these rigid critics. Who would +not rather read one of his plays, where there is not a single rule of +the stage observed, than any production of a modern critic where there +is not one of them violated![A] Shakespeare was indeed born with all +the seeds of poetry, and may be compared to the stone in Pyrrhus's +ring, which, as Pliny tells us, had the figure of Apollo and the nine +Muses in the veins of it, produced by the spontaneous hand of Nature +without any help from art. + +[Footnote A: With all his fondness for classic models, Addison breaks +away from conventionality of form in this essay, and pays his tribute +to the genius of Shakespeare. But critical Joe could never forget the +bard's so-called "faults" of construction.] + + + + +THEATRICAL PROPERTY + +(_Steele in "The Tatler," No. 42_) + + +It is now twelve of the clock at noon, and no mail come in; therefore +I am not without hopes that the town will allow me the liberty +which my brother news-writers take in giving them what may be for +information in another kind, and indulge me in doing an act of +friendship, by publishing the following account of goods and +moveables. + +This is to give notice, that a magnificent palace, with great +variety of gardens, statues, and water works, may be bought cheap in +Drury-lane; where there are likewise several castles, to be disposed +of, very delightfully situated; as also groves, woods, forests, +fountains, and country-seats, with very pleasant prospects on all +sides of them; being the moveables of Christopher Rich, Esquire,[A] +who is breaking up house-keeping, and has many curious pieces of +furniture to dispose of, which may be seen between the hours of six +and ten in the evening. + +[Footnote A: This essay was written (July, 1709) at the time that +Drury Lane was closed, by order of the Lord Chamberlain.] + + +THE INVENTORY. + +Spirits of right Nantz brandy, for lambent flames and apparitions. + +Three bottles and a half of lightning. + +One shower of snow in the whitest French paper. + +Two showers of a browner sort. + +A sea, consisting of a dozen large waves; the tenth bigger than +ordinary, and a little damaged. + +A dozen and a half of clouds, trimmed with black, and well +conditioned. + +A rainbow, a little faded. + +A set of clouds after the French mode, streaked with lightning and +furbelowed. + +A new moon, something decayed. + +A pint of the finest Spanish wash, being all that is left of two +hogsheads sent over last winter. + +A coach very finely gilt, and little used, with a pair of dragons, to +be sold cheap. + +A setting-sun, a pennyworth. + +An imperial mantle, made for Cyrus the Great, and worn by Julius +Caesar, Bajazet, King Harry the Eighth, and Signor Valentini. + +A basket-hilted sword, very convenient to carry milk in. + +Roxana's night-gown. + +Othello's handkerchief. + +The imperial robes of Xerxes, never worn but once. + +A wild boar killed by Mrs. Tofts[A] and Dioclesian. + +[Footnote A: A favourite singer of the day.] + +A serpent to sting Cleopatra. + +A mustard-bowl to make thunder with. + +Another of a bigger sort, by Mr. D----'s[A] directions, little used. + +[Footnote A: John Dennis, the critic.] + +Six elbow-chairs, very expert in country dances, with six flower-pots +for their partners. + +The whiskers of a Turkish Pasha. + +The complexion of a murderer in a band-box; consisting of a large +piece of burnt cork, and a coal-black peruke. + +A suit of clothes for a ghost, viz., a bloody shirt, a doublet +curiously pinked, and a coat with three great eyelet-holes upon the +breast. + +A bale of red Spanish wool. + +Modern plots, commonly known by the name of trapdoors, ladders of +ropes, vizard-masques, and tables with broad carpets over them. + +Three oak-cudgels, with one of crab-tree; all bought for the use of +Mr. Pinkethman.[A] + +[Footnote A: The comedian.] + +Materials for dancing; as masques, castanets, and a ladder of ten +rounds. + +Aurengezebe's scymitar, made by Will Brown in Piccadilly. + +A plume of feathers, never used but by Oedipus and the Earl of Essex. + +There are also swords, halbards, sheep-hooks, cardinals' hats, +turbans, drums, gallipots, a gibbet, a cradle, a rack, a cart-wheel, +an altar, an helmet, a back-piece, a breast-plate, a bell, a tub, and +a jointed baby. + + + + +ACTORS AND AUDIENCE. + +(_From Cibber's "Apology_") + + +Among our many necessary reformations, what not a little preserved to +us the regard of our auditors was the decency of our clear stage, from +whence we had now for many years shut out those idle gentlemen who +seemed more delighted to be pretty objects themselves than capable of +any pleasure from the play; who took their daily stands where they +might best elbow the actor, and come in for their share of the +auditor's attention. In many a laboured scene of the wannest humour +and of the most affecting passion I have seen the best actors +disconcerted, while these buzzing muscatos have been fluttering round +their eyes and ears. How was it possible an actor, so embarrassed, +should keep his impatience from entering into that different temper +which his personated character might require him to be master of? + +Future actors may perhaps wish I would set this grievance in a +stronger light; and, to say the truth, where auditors are ill-bred, it +cannot well be expected that actors should be polite. Let me therefore +show how far an artist in any science is apt to be hurt by any sort of +inattention to his performance. + +While the famous Corelli,[A] at Rome, was playing some musical +composition of his own to a select company in the private apartment of +his patron-Cardinal, he observed, in the heighth of his harmony, +his Eminence was engaging in a detached conversation, upon which +he suddenly stopt short and gently laid down his instrument. The +Cardinal, surprised at the unexpected cessation, asked him if a string +was broke? To which Corelli, in an honest conscience of what was due +to his musick, reply'd, "No, Sir, I was only afraid I enterrupted +business." His Eminence, who knew that a genius could never shew +itself to advantage where it had not its regards, took this reproof in +good part, and broke off his conversation to hear the whole concerto +played over again. + +[Footnote A: Arcangelo Corelli, the "father of modern instrumental +music."] + +Another story will let us see what effect a mistaken offence of this +kind had upon the French theatre, which was told me by a gentleman of +the long robe, then at Paris, and who was himself the innocent author +of it. At the tragedy of "Zaire," while the celebrated Mademoiselle +Gossin[A] was delivering a soliloquy, this gentleman was seized with +a sudden fit of coughing, which gave the actress some surprise and +interruption; and his fit increasing, she was forced to stand silent +so long that it drew the eyes of the uneasy audience upon him, when a +French gentleman, leaning forward to him, asked him, If this actress +had given him any particular offence, that he took so publick an +occasion to resent it? The English gentleman, in the utmost surprise, +assured him, So far from it, that he was a particular admirer of +her performance; that his malady was his real misfortune, and if he +apprehended any return of it, he would rather quit his seat than +disoblige either the actress or the audience. + +[Footnote A: Jeanne, Catherine Gossin, of the Comédie Française.] + +This publick decency in their theatre I have myself seen carried so +far that a gentleman in their second Loge, or middle-gallery, being +observed to sit forward himself while a lady sate behind him, a loud +number of voices called out to him from the pit, "_Place à la +Dame! Place à la Dame_!" When the person so offending, either not +apprehending the meaning of the clamour, or possibly being some John +Trott who feared no man alive, the noise was continued for several +minutes; nor were the actors, though ready on the stage, suffered to +begin the play till this unbred person was laughed out of his seat, +and had placed the lady before him. + +Whether this politeness observed at plays may be owing to their clime, +their complexion, or their government, is of no great consequence; +but if it is to be acquired, methinks it is a pity our accomplished +countrymen, who every year import so much of this nation's gawdy +garniture, should not, in this long course of our commerce with them, +have brought over a little of their theatrical good-breeding too. + + + + +INDEX + + + Abington, Mrs. + Actors and audience, Colley Cibber on + Addison, Joseph + his "Cato" + Anne, Queen + Anne's reign, Life in Queen + Ashbury, Joseph + Ashton's "Reign of Queen Anne" + Aston, Tony + Attorneys of Queen Anne's day + + Baggs, Zachary + Baker of Dublin + Barry, Spranger, + Mrs. Spranger + Barry, Mrs. Elizabeth + Bartholomew Fair + Bath life + "Beaux' Stratagem," Farquhar's + Bellchambers, Edmund + Bertie, Miss Dye + Betterton, Thomas + Blackmore, Dr. (Sir Richard) + Boileau + Bolingbroke, Lord + Booth, Barton + Mrs. Barton + _see also_ Santlow + Boswell, James + Bowman, an actor + Bracegirdle, Anne + Bradshaw, Mrs. + Brett, Colonel + Miss Anne + Broschi, Carlo (Farinelli) + Budgell, Eustace + Bullock, an actor + Burney, Dr. + "Busiris," Young's + + Cadogan, Charles Sloane, 1st Earl + Campbell, Thomas + "Careless Husband," Cibber's + Cat, Christopher + Cat-calls + "Cato," Addison's + Centlivre, Mrs. + her "Perplexed Lovers" + Centlivre, Mr. + Charles II., King + Chener, Mons. + Chetwood, W.R. + "Christian Hero, The," Steele's + Church and stage + Church music and the theatre + Churchill, General (Marlborough's nephew) + Churchill, Colonel (Oldfield's son) + Churchill, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough + Churchill, Mary, Countess of Cadogan + Cibber, Caius Gabriel + Cibber, Colley + "Cibber, Apology for the Life of" + Cibber, Theophilus + Clive, Mrs. + Coffee-houses of Addison's day + Collier, William + Colman's "Random Records" + Congreve + Corelli, Arcangelo + Costumes, Stage + Courthorpe's "Addison" + Covent Garden Theatre + Craggs, Mr. Secretary + Crawley, the showman + Critics, Addison on dramatic + Crown, John + Cuzzoni, Francesca + + Davenant, Alexander + Davies, T. + Defoe, Daniel + Delany, Mrs. + Dennis, John, + "Essay on the Operas" + Diction of the eighteenth century + "Distressed Mother, The," Philips' + Dod, Benjamin + Dogget, Thomas + Doran, Dr. + Dorset, Earl of + Dorset, Garden Theatre + Downes, the prompter + Drama and the Restoration + Dramatic critics (Addison) + Dramatic writings, old and new + Drury Lane Theatre + Drury Lane, + revolt of Betterton + another exodus + riot + Drury Lane, Company + Dryden + "Duke of York's Company" + D'Urfey's "Western Lass" + + "Echoes of the Playhouse" + Elrington, Thomas + Epilogues, Comic (The _Spectator_) + Estcourt, Dick + Eugene, Prince + Evans, John + + "Fair Quaker of Deal," Shadwell's + Farinelli + Farquhar, Capt. George + Faustina, Bordoni Hasse + Fielding, Henry + Fitzgerald, Percy + Fontaine, Monsieur de la + Foote, Samuel + "Funeral, or Grief à la Mode, The," Steele's + Funeral customs, old time + + Gambling women + Garrick, David + Garth, Dr. + Genest, P. + George I., King + Gildon, Charles, + Gossin, Jeane Catherine + Gregory, Mr. + Griffith, Thomas + Gwyne, Nell + + Habits of society + Halifax, Lord + Haymarket Theatre, + restricted to operas + "Hearts, The King of," Maynwaring's + Hendon, Heywoodhill + Henley, Mr. + Hertford, Countess of + Hill, Aaron + Horton, Mrs. + Howard, Bronson + Hoyt, Mr. + Hughes, Mr. + Hulet, Charles + + Ibsen + "Inconstant, The," Farquhar's + Ingolsby, General + Italian opera + + "Jane Shore," Rowe's + Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster + Johnson, Dr. Samuel + Johnstone, Drury Lane machinist + Jones, Henry Arthur + Jonson, Benjamin + + Keen, Theophilus + Killigrew, Charles + "King's Company, The" + Kit-Cat Club + Knight, Mrs. + Knipp, Mrs. + + Lambro, Miss + Lecouvreur, French actress + Leigh, Francis + Lincoln's Inn Field Theatre of 1695, + re-opened + "Lives of the Poets," Cibber's + Lorrain, Rev. Paul + Lowe, R.W. + + Macclesfield, Anne, 1st Countess of + Macklin + "Make-up," Art of + Marlborough, _see_ Churchill + Master of the Revels, office of + Maynwaring, Arthur, + Maynwaring, Mr. (Oldfield's son) + "Milk White Flag, A," Mr. Hoyt's + Mills, John + Misson's, Henre, "Memoirs" + Mist, Nathaniel + _Mist's Weekly Journal_ + Mitford, M.R. + Mitre Tavern + Molière + Montagu, Captain + Morley's "Notes on The _Spectator_" + Mountford, Will + Mountford, Mrs., _see_ Verbruggen + Mountford, Susan + + Neal, Edmund, "Phaedra and Hippolitus" + "Non-Juror, The," Cibber's + Norris, an actor + + Oldfield, Captain + Oldfield, Mrs. + Oldfield, Anne (Nance) + birth + meets Farquhar + introduced to Vanbrugh, + joins the stage + Bath _début_ + first stage triumph + Cibber's "Careless Husband" her success + deportment + as Sylvia in Farquhar's "Recruiting Officer" + leaves Drury Lane for the Haymarket + supplants Mrs. Bracegirdle + salary at the Haymarket + ---- and at Drury Lane + as Andromache in "Distressed Mother" + plays Marcia in "Cato" + meets Alexander Pope + tragic parts + rivals produce a riot, her triumph + as Jane Shore + adheres to Drury Lane + takes Sophonisba, praised by Thomson + meridian lustre + mistress of A. Maynwaring + personal attractions + accepts protection of Marlborough's nephew + received at Court + her natural children + ancestress of Earls of Cadogan + sympathy for Richard Savage + intercedes for his life + mourned by Savage + contemporaries + her equipage + sweetness and common sense + retains her bloom + captivating as Lady Townley + moved in polite circles + ill-health, dies in Lower Grosvenor Street + laid in State in the Jerusalem Chamber + interred in Westminster Abbey + Oldfield, Anne, elegy by Richard Savage + Opera, Italian + Operatic singers + Oxford and the drama + actors contribute to St. Mary's restoration fund + + Page, Francis + Pepy's Diary + "Perplexed Lovers, The," Centlivre's + Philips, Ambrose + Players in Queen Anne's time + Pope, Alexander + Porter, Mistress + Powell, George + Prince George of Denmark + Pritchard, Sir William + "Provoked Husband, The," Vanbrugh and Cibber's + + Radcliffe, Dr. + "Recruiting Officer, The," Farquhar's + Rich, Christopher + Rich, John + Rivers, Lord + Rogers, Mrs. + Rowe, Nicholas + Russell Court Chapel + Ryan, Lacy + + Sandridge, Dean + Santlow, Hester + _see also_ Booth, Mrs. + Saunders, Mistress + Savage, Richard + Schlegel, Augustus Wm. + "Scornful Lady, The" + Shadwell, Thomas + Sheridan, Richard Brinsley + Side-shows + "Sir Courtly Nice," Crown's + "Sir Thomas Overbury," Savage's + Skipworth, Sir Thomas + Smith, an actor + _Spectator, The_ + Stage armies + Stanyan, T. + Steele, Sir Richard + Strolling players + Swift, Dean + Swiney, Owen + + "Tamerlane," N. Rowe's + "Tartuffe," Molière's + Theatre and church + and playgoers + Theatrical dress + claptrap, Addison on + property, Sir R. Steele on + Theatricals began, Hour + Thomas, Augustus + Thomson's "Sophonisba" + Thurmond, John + Toasts + Toasting glasses + Tofts, Mrs. + Tonson, Jacob + Trumbull, Sir William + + Vanbrugh, Sir John + Verbruggen, Mrs. + Voltaire + Voss, Mrs. + + Walker, an actor + Walpole, Horace + Walpole, Sir Robert + Ward, Ned + Wig, cost of a full-bottomed + Wilks, Robert + William III., King + Williams, Joseph + Woffington, Peg + "Wonder, The," Mrs. Centlivre's + Woollen shrouds + + Yates, Mistress + Young's, Dr., "Busiris" + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11717 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b524984 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #11717 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11717) diff --git a/old/11717-8.txt b/old/11717-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4abaa18 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11717-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8782 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield, by Edward +Robins + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield + +Author: Edward Robins + +Release Date: March 25, 2004 [eBook #11717] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PALMY DAYS OF NANCE OLDFIELD*** + + +E-text prepared by the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading +Team + + + +THE PALMY DAYS OF NANCE OLDFIELD + +BY + +EDWARD ROBINS + +WITH PORTRAITS + +1898 + + + + + + +[Illustration: Mrs. Oldfield the celebrated Comedian] + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. FROM TAVERN TO THEATRE + II. AN ENTRE-ACTE + III. A BELLE OF METTLE + IV. MANAGERIAL WICKEDNESS + V. A DEAD HERO + VI. IN TRAGIC PATHS + VII. NANCE AT HOME + VIII. THE MIMIC WORLD + IX. "GRIEF À LA MODE" + X. THE BARTON BOOTHS + XI. THE FADING OF A STAR + APPENDIX + + + + +PORTRAITS + + +Frontispiece: Mrs. Anne Oldfield + +Title-page: Mrs. Oldfield in the Character of Fair Rosamond + +Colley Cibber in the Character of Sir Novelty Fashion + +Robert Wilks + +William Congreve + +Mrs. Anne Bracegirdle + +Mrs. Bracegirdle as the "Sultaness" + +Joseph Addison + +Mrs. Anne Oldfield + +Mr. Mills, Mrs. Porter, Mr. Cibber + +Sir John Vanbrugh + +Sir Richard Steele + +Barton Booth + + + + +THE PALMY DAYS OF NANCE OLDFIELD + + + + +CHAPTER I + +FROM TAVERN TO THEATRE + + +"Out of question, you were born in a merry hour," says Don Pedro to +the blithesome heroine of "Much Ado About Nothing." + +"No, sure, my lord," answers Beatrice. "My mother cried; but then +there was a star danced, and under that was I born." + +Surely a star, possibly Venus, must have danced gaily on a certain +night in the year of grace 1683, when the wife of Captain Oldfield, +gentleman by birth and Royal Guardsman by profession, brought into the +busy, unfeeling world of London a pretty mite of a girl. 'Twas a year +of grace indeed, for the little stranger happened to be none other +than Anne Oldfield, whose elegance of manner, charm of voice and +action and loveliness of face would in time make her the most +delightful comedienne of her day. Perhaps she found no instant +welcome, this diminutive maiden who came smiling into existence laden +with a message from the sunshine; her father was richer in ancestry +than guineas, and the arrival of another daughter may have seemed an +honour hardly worth the bestowal.[A] But Thalia laughed, as well she +might, and even the stern features of Melpomene relaxed a little in +witnessing the birth of one who would prove almost as wondrous in +tragedy, when she so minded, as she was fascinating in the gentler +phases of her art. + +[Footnote A: According to Edmund Bellchambers, Anne Oldfield "would +have possessed a tolerable fortune, had not her father, a captain in +the army, expended it at a very early period."] + +Yet the laughter of Thalia and the unbending of her sister Muse were +hardly likely to make much impression in the Oldfield household, where +money had more admirers than mythology, and so we are not surprised to +learn that, with the death of the gallant captain, this "incomparable +sweet girl," who would ere long reconcile even a supercilious +Frenchman to the English stage, had to seek her living as a +seamstress. How she sewed a bodice or hemmed a petticoat we know not, +nor do we care; it is far more interesting to be told that, though +only in her early teens, the toiler with the needle found her greatest +recreation in reading Beaumont and Fletcher's plays. The modern young +woman, be her station high or low, would take no pleasure in such a +literary occupation, but in the days of Nance Oldfield to con the +pages of Beaumont and Fletcher was considered a privilege rather than +a duty. Then, again, the little seamstress had a soul above threads +and thimbles; her heart was with the players, and we can imagine her +running off some idle afternoon to peep slyly into Drury Lane Theatre, +or perhaps walk over into Lincoln's Inn Fields, where the noble +Betterton and his companions had formed a rival company. The +performance over, she hurries to the Mitre Tavern, in St. James's +Market, and here she is sure of a warm welcome, as is but natural, +since the Mrs. Voss who rules the destinies of the hostelry is Anne's +elder sister[A]. Here the girl loves to spend those rare moments of +leisure, reading aloud the comedies of long ago and dreaming of the +future; and here, too, it is that dashing Captain Farquhar listens in +amazement as she recites the "Scornful Lady." + +[Footnote A: According to one authority Mrs. Voss was Anne's aunt. We +adhere, however, to Dr. Doran's account of the relationship.] + +George Farquhar--how his name conjures up a vision of all that +is brilliant, rakish, and bibulous in the expiring days of the +seventeenth century! It is easy to picture him, as he stands near +the congenial bar of the tavern, entranced by the liquid tones and +marvellous expression of Nance's youthful voice. He has a whimsical, +good-humoured face, perhaps showing the rubicund effects of steady +drinking (as whose features did not in those halcyon times of merry +nights and tired mornings?), and a general air of loving the world and +its pleasures, despite a secret suspicion that a hard-hearted bailiff +may be lying in wait around the corner. His flowing wig may seem a +trifle old, the embroidery on his once resplendent vest look sadly +tarnished, and the cloth of his skirted coat exhibit the unmistakable +symptoms of age, but, for all that, Captain Farquhar stands forth an +honourable, high-spirited gentleman. And gentleman George Farquhar +is both by birth and bearing. Was he not the son of genteel parents +living in the North of Ireland, and did he not receive a polite +education at the University in Dublin? So polite, indeed, has his +training been that he is already the author of that wonderful "Love +and a Bottle," a comedy wherein he amusingly holds the mirror up to +English vices, including his own. And, speaking of vices, he can now +look back to those salad days when he wrote verses of unimpeachable +morality, setting forth, among other sentiments, that-- + + "The pliant Soul of erring Youth + Is, like soft Wax, or moisten'd Clay, + Apt to receive all heav'nly Truth, + Or yield to Tyrant Ill the Sway. + Shun Evil in your early Years, + And Manhood may to Virtue rise; + But he who, in his Youth, appears + A Fool, in Age will ne'er be wise." + +Poor fellow! He never will be wise in the material sense; he will trip +gracefully through life with more brains and bonhomie than worldly +discretion, yet eclipsing many steadier companions by writing the +"Recruiting Officer" and other sparkling plays, not forgetting "The +Inconstant," which will last even unto the end of the nineteenth +century. At present--and 'tis the present rather than the past or +future that most concerns the captain--he holds a commission in the +army, which he is foolish enough to relinquish later on, and he has +come to the very sensible conclusion that he is far more at home in +the writing of comedies than the acting therein. For he has been +on the stage, and precipitately retired therefrom after accidently +wounding a fellow performer[A]. In the course of two or three years +Farquhar will make a desperate attempt to be mercenary by marrying a +girl whom he supposes to be wealthy; he will find out his mistake, and +then, like the thoroughbred that he is, will go on cherishing her as +though she had brought him a ton of rent-rolls. When he is dead and +gone, Chetwood, the veteran prompter of Drury Lane, will tell +us, quaintly enough, how "it was affirm'd, by some of his near +Acquaintance, his unfortunate Marriage shortened his Days; for his +Wife (by whom he had two Daughters), through the Reputation of a great +Fortune, trick'd him into Matrimony. This was chiefly the Fault of her +Love, which was so violent that she was resolved to use all Arts to +gain him. Tho' some Husbands, in such a Case, would have proved _mere +Husbands_, yet he was so much charm'd with her Love and Understanding, +that he liv'd very happy with her. Therefore when I say an unfortunate +Marriage, with other Circumstances, conducted to the shortening of his +Days; I only mean that his Fortune, being too slender to support a +Family, led him into a great many Cares and Inconveniences." + +[Footnote A: Farquhar was playing in "The Indian Emperor" being cast +for Guyomar, a character whose pleasant duty it is to kill Vasquez, +the Spanish general. This particular Guyomar forgot to change his +sword for a theatre foil, and in the subsequent encounter gave Vasquez +too realistic a punishment]. + +No one would have appreciated the unconscious humour of Chetwood's +assertion about "some husbands" more than Farquhar himself. One +trembles to think, by the way what a "mere husband" must have been in +the reigns of William or Anne. + +In the meantime we are almost forgetting young Mistress Oldfield, who +is still reading the "Scornful Lady," and putting new life and grace +into lines which nowadays seem a bit academic and musty. The captain +has not forgotten her, however; on the contrary, he is so charmed with +what he hears that he makes some flimsy excuse to get into that room +behind the bar whence the silvery voice proceeds. There he first meets +Nance, surrounded by what audience we know not, and is struck dumb at +the lovely figure standing out in bashful relief, as it were, against +a background of wine bottles and ale tankards. There is an awkward +pause, no doubt, and if the girl of fifteen comes to a sudden stop in +her recital, Farquhar is no less embarrassed on his part. + +The handsome, rosy face of a strapping tavern wench would not have +startled him, but he was not gazing upon a bouncing serving maid or +the hoydenish daughter of a prosperous innkeeper. He beheld a creature +in all the gentle bloom of highbred beauty--tall, well-formed, and +radiating a sort of natural elegance, with a fine-shaped, expressive +face, to which great speaking eyes and a mouth half pensive, half +smiling, lent an air of rare distinction. These were the eyes which +in after years Anne would half close in a roguish way, as when, for +instance, she meditated a brilliant stroke as Lady Betty Modish, and +then, opening them defiantly, would make them glisten with the spirit +of twinkling comedy. These were the eyes, too, which would shine forth +such unutterable love when she played Cleopatra that one might well +pardon the peccadilloes of poor Antony. But as yet there was no +thought of drooping eyelids or amorous glances; all was natural, and +nothing more so than the coyness of Nance upon seeing the author of +"Love and a Bottle." + +Captain Farquhar had never before beheld this seamstress from King +Street, Westminster, but she must have been familiar with the handsome +figure of one who had drunk many a brimming glass at the Mitre Tavern. +Thus, when he made bold to praise her elocution, she was not offended, +and, although she ignored his request to continue the "Scornful Lady," +Anne proved sufficiently mistress of the interruption to astonish the +intruder by her "discourse and sprightly wit." That innate breeding, +of which no amount of poverty could deprive her, came to the surface, +to show that a woman of quality is none the worse for a surprise. +Farquhar, bowing low with a grace that made his faded clothes seem the +pink of fashion, poured forth a torrent of flowery compliments, which +became all the stronger when he heard that the girl knew Beaumont and +Fletcher nearly by heart. She must have blushed, looking prettier than +ever, as the visitor went on; and how that young heart did leap as +he predicted for her a glorious future on the stage! The stage! the +_Ultima Thule_ of all her hopes! The very idea of acting filled her +head with a thousand bewildering fancies, and, as she told Chetwood in +after years, "I longed to be at it, and only wanted a little decent +intreaties." + +The decent intreaties were forthcoming. Nance's mother, who evidently +rejoiced in a prophetic spirit not given to all parents, strongly +agreed with Farquhar's opinion that the young lady should try a +theatrical career, and the upshot of the whole episode was that +Captain Vanbrugh took an interest in the newly-found jewel. This was a +high honour. Vanbrugh had not yet made for himself a reputation as an +architect by building Blenheim Castle for the Marlboroughs, nor had +he changed his title of Captain for Sir John; but he was a great +man, nevertheless, a successful dramatist and a boon companion of +Christopher Rich, manager of Drury Lane. When the enthusiastic +Farquhar sounded the praises of Anne Oldfield the future Sir John +quickly repaired to the sign of the Mitre, with which, no doubt, he +was already familiar, and met the young enchantress of that historic +little room behind the bar. The arrival of this second and more +distinguished captain was evidently the signal for a family council. +We can see them all--Nance, glowing with excitement, her Brahmin-like, +aristocratic beauty heightened by a dash of natural colour, quite +different from the rouge she might use later; Mrs. Voss, sleepy, +comfortable, and well pleased; and Mrs. Oldfield, full of importance +and maternal solicitude. Vanbrugh, with his good-humoured smile and +military bearing, talks in a fatherly way to the daughter, is deeply +impressed with her many attractions, and is not sorry to learn that +her ambition is all for comedy. He promises to use his good offices +with Mr. Rich to have her enrolled as a member of the Drury Lane +company, keeps his word, too--something for a gentleman to do in the +year 1699--and soon has the satisfaction of seeing his new protégée +hobnobbing with Mrs. Verbruggen, Wilks, Cibber, and other players of +the house, while drawing fifteen shillings a week for the privilege. + +To hobnob, receive a few shillings, and do next to nothing on the +stage does not seem a glorious beginning for our heroine, but think +of the inestimable luxury of brushing up against Colley Cibber. This +remarkable man, who would be in turn actor, manager, playwright, and a +pretty bad Poet Laureate before death would put an extinguisher on +his prolific muses, had at first no exalted opinion of the newcomer's +powers. + +"In the year 1699," he writes in that immortal biography of his,[A] +"Mrs. Oldfield was first taken into the house, where she remain'd +about a twelvemonth, almost a mute and unheeded, 'till Sir John +Vanbrugh, who first recommended her, gave her the part of Alinda in +the 'Pilgrim' revis'd. This gentle character happily became that want +of confidence which is inseparable from young beginners, who, without +it, seldom arrive to any excellence. Notwithstanding, I own I was then +so far deceiv'd in my opinion of her, that I thought she had little +more in her person that appeared necessary to the forming a good +actress; for she set out with so extraordinary a diffidence, that it +kept her too despondingly down to a formal, plain, (not to say)flat +manner of speaking." + +[Footnote A: "An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber."] + +How strange it seems, as we peer back behind the scenes of history, +to think of a theatrical _débutante_ rejoicing in an extraordinary +diffidence. "Rather a cynical remark, isn't it?" the reader may ask. +Well, perhaps it is, but these are piping times of advertising, when +even genius has been known to employ a press agent. + +Nance Oldfield may have been almost mute for a twelvemonth, yet more +than a few feminine novices, Anno Domino 1898, would never be +content to remain silent; not only must they make a noise behind the +footlights, but they feel it incumbent to be heard in the newspapers +as well. Any dramatic editor could tell a weary tale of the +importunities of a progressive young lady who wants to enlighten +an aching public at least six times a week as to the number of her +dresses, the colour of her hair, and the attention of her admirers. +There is a blessed consolation in all this: the female with the +trousseau, the champagned locks and the notoriety lasts no longer +than the butterfly, and her place is soon taken by the girl who never +bothers about the paragraphs, because she is sure to get them. + +To return to the more congenial subject of Oldfield, it is strange +that so shrewd a Thespian as Cibber (who seems to have been clever in +all things but poetry) was so long in coming to a real appreciation of +her genius. He is manly enough to confess that not even the silvery +tone of that honeyed voice could, "'till after some time incline my +ear to any hope in her favour." "But public approbation," he tells us, +"is the warm weather of a theatrical plant, which will soon bring it +forward to whatever perfection nature has design'd it. However, Mrs. +Oldfield (perhaps for want of fresh parts) seem'd to come but slowly +forward 'till the year 1703." So slowly had she come forward indeed, +that in 1702, Gildon, a now forgotten critic and dramatist, included +her among the "meer Rubbish that ought to be swept off the stage with +the Filth and Dust."[A] Time has avenged the actress for this slight; +who, excepting the student of theatrical history, remembers Gildon? + +[Footnote A: From the "Comparison Between the Two Stages."] + +What is more to the purpose, Nance was able to avenge herself in the +flesh, only a few months after these contemptuous lines had been +penned. It happened at Bath, in the summer of 1703, and the story of +her triumph, brief as it is, sounds quaint and pretty, as it comes +down to us laden with a thousand suggestions of fashionable life in +the reign of Queen Anne--a life made up of gossip and cards, drinking, +gaming, patches and powder, fine clothes, full perriwigs and empty +heads. What a picturesque lot of people there must have been at the +great English spa that season, all anxious to get a glimpse of her +plump majesty, who was staying there, and all willing enough to do +anything except to test the waters or the baths from which the place +first acquired fame. They were all there, the pretty maids and +wrinkled matrons, the young rakes of twenty, ready for a frolic, and +the old rakes of thirty too weary to do much more than go to the +theatre and cry out, "Damme, this is a damn'd play." Then the +children, who were always in the way, and the aged fathers of families +who liked to swear at the dandified airs and newly imported French +manners of their sons. And such sons as some of them were too--smart +fellows, of whom the beau described in "The Careless Husband," may be +taken as an example: one "that's just come to a small estate, and a +great perriwig--he that sings himself among the women--he won't speak +to a gentleman when a lord's in company. You always see him with a +cane dangling at his button, his breast open, no gloves, one eye +tuck'd under his hat, and a toothpick." + +What of the belles of the Bath? They seem to have been much after the +fashion of their modern sisters, with their harmless little vanities, +their love of expensive finery, and their pretty eyes ever watching +for the main chance, or a chance man. Odsbodkins! but the world has +changed very little, for even then we hear of dashing specimens of the +New Woman, in the persons of ladies who affected men's hats, feathers, +coats, and perriwigs, to such an extent that our dear friend Addison +will gently rebuke them during the reign of the _Spectator_. He +doubts if this masculinity will "smite more effectually their male +beholders," for how would the sweet creatures themselves be affected +"should they meet a man on horseback, in his breeches and jack-boots, +and at the same time dressed up in a commode[A] and a night raile?" + +[Footnote A: A cumbersome head-dress made of lace or muslin.] + +How charming it would have been to watch the whole gay crew, just +as Addison and Steele must have done, and to feel, like these +two delightful philosophers, that you were a little above the +surroundings. Poor Dick Steele may not always have been above those +surroundings; we can fancy him taking things comfortably in some +tippling-house, red-faced, happy, and winey, but even the most +puritanical of us will forgive him. Read, by the way, what he says of +the Spa's morals[A]--"I found a sober, modest man was always looked +upon by both sexes as a precise, unfashioned fellow of no life or +spirit. It was ordinary for a man who had been drunk in good company, +or.... to speak of it next day before women for whom he had the +greatest respect. He was reproved, perhaps, with a blow of the fan, +or an 'Oh, fy!' but the angry lady still preserved an apparent +approbation in her countenance. He was called a strange, wicked +fellow, a sad wretch; he shrugs his shoulders, swears, receives +another blow, swears again he did not know he swore, and all was well. +You might often see men game in the presence of women, and throw at +once for more than they were worth, to recommend themselves as men of +spirit. I found by long experience that the loosest principles and +most abandoned behaviour carried all before them in pretentions to +women of fortune." + +[Footnote A: _Spectator_, No. 154. Steele is writing as Simon +Honeycomb.] + +Into this merry throng came Anne Oldfield during that +never-to-be-forgotten summer--not, however, as an equal, but as an +humble player of the troupe from Drury Lane. They had moved down from +London, these happy-go-lucky Bohemians, as they were wont to do each +season, among them being the ubiquitous Cibber, the gentlemanly Wilks, +and that very talented vagabond, George Powell. Powell it was who +liked his brandy not wisely but too well, and who made such passionate +love on the stage that Sir John Vanbrugh used to wax nervous for the +fate of the actresses. One great artiste was missing, however. Mrs. +Verbruggen was ill in London, and that shining exponent of light +comedy, who Cibber said was mistress of more variety of humour than +he ever knew in any one actress, would never more tread those boards +which were dearer to her than life.[A] Before she disappears for ever +from these "Palmy Days" let us read a page or two about her from the +graphic pictures in that famous "Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley +Cibber":-- + + * * * * * + +"As she was naturally a pleasant mimick, she had the skill to make +that talent useful on the stage, a talent which may be surprising in +a conversation, and yet be lost when brought to the theatre.... But +where the elocution is round, distinct, voluble, and various, as Mrs. +Montfort's was, the mimick there is a great assistant to the actor." + +[Footnote A: A brief memoir of Mrs. Verbruggen and her first husband, +handsome Will Mountford, will be found in "Echoes of the Playhouse."] + + * * * * * + +Which reminds one that more than a baker's dozen of modern comedians, +so called, are nothing less than mimics. However, this is digressing, +and so we continue: + +"Nothing, tho' ever so barren, if within the bounds of nature, could +be flat in her hands. She gave many heightening touches to characters +but coldly written, and often made an author vain of his work that in +itself had but little merit. She was so fond of humour, in what low +part soever to be found, that she would make no scruple of defacing +her fair form to come heartily into it;[A] for when she was eminent +in several desirable characters of wit and humour in higher life, she +would be in as much fancy when descending into the antiquated Abigail +of Fletcher ('Scornful Lady') as when triumphing in all the airs and +vain graces of a fine lady, a merit that few actresses care for. In +a play of D'Urfey's, now forgotten, called the 'Western Lass,' which +part she acted, she transformed her whole being, body, shape, voice, +language, look, and features, into almost another animal, with a +strong Devonshire dialect, a broad, laughing voice, a poking head, +round shoulders, an unconceiving eye, and the most bediz'ning, dowdy +dress that ever cover'd the untrain'd limbs of a Joan Trot. To have +seen her here you would have thought it impossible the same creature +could ever have been recover'd to what was as easy to her, the gay, +the lively, and the desirable. Nor was her humour limited to her sex; +for, while her shape permitted, she was a more adroit pretty fellow +than is usually seen upon the stage. Her easy air, action, mien, and +gesture quite chang'd, from the quoif to the cock'd hat and cavalier +in fashion. People were so fond of seeing her a man, that when the +part of Bays in the 'Rehearsal' had for some time lain dormant, she +was desired to take it up, which I have seen her act with all the true +coxcombly spirit and humour that the sufficiency of the character +required." + +[Footnote A: Davies, in his "Life of Garrick," says of Peg Woffington +that "in Mrs. Day, in the 'Committee,' she made no scruple to disguise +her beautiful countenance by drawing on it the lines of deformity and +the wrinkles of old age, and to put on the tawdry habilaments and +vulgar manners of an old hypocritical city vixen."] + +Let us cry peace to her manes and then wander back to Mistress +Oldfield, whom we have a very ungallant way of leaving from time to +time. + +Well, Verbruggen having been taken out of the dramatic lists "most of +her parts," as Colley chronicles, "were, of course, to be disposed of, +yet so earnest was the female scramble for them, that only one of them +fell to the share of Mrs. Oldfield, that of Leonora in 'Sir Courtly +Nice'; a character of good plain sense, but not over elegantly +written." + +A "female scramble" it must have been with a vengeance, as any one who +knows aught of theatrical ambition will easily understand. The only +really distinguished actress of the Drury Lane coterie _hors de +combat_, and a bevy of feminine vultures of no particular pretension, +anxiously waiting to dispose of her histrionic remains! Think of it, +ye managers who have to subdue the passions and limit the extravagant +hopes of your players, and pity poor, unfortunate Mr. Rich. Do you +wonder that Nance only contrived to get the plain-spoken Leonora? The +wonder of it is that she obtained any rôle whatsoever. + +Let Cibber continue the story, while he frankly confesses that even he +could form a false estimate of a colleague: + + * * * * * + +"It was in this part Mrs. Oldfield surpris'd me into an opinion of her +having all the innate powers of a good actress, though they were yet +but in the bloom of what they promis'd. Before she had acted this part +I had so cold an expectation from her abilities, that she could scarce +prevail with me to rehearse with her the scenes she was chiefly +concerned in with Sir Courtly, which I then acted. However, we +ran them over with a mutual inadvertency of one another. I seem'd +careless, as concluding that any assistance I could give her would be +to little or no purpose; and she mutter'd out her words in a sort of +mifty manner at my low opinion of her. But when the play came to be +acted, she had just occasion to triumph over the error of my judgment, +by the (almost) amazement that her unexpected performance awak'd me +to; so forward and sudden a step into nature I had never seen; and +what made her performance more valuable was that I knew it all +proceeded from her own understanding, untaught and unassisted by any +one more experienced actor." + + * * * * * + +In the original text, Cibber, in pursuance of that old-fashioned +method of capitalising every third or fourth word without any +particular rhyme or reason, has spelled occasion with a big O. Well +he might, for it was, perhaps, the most important occasion in all the +eventful life of Oldfield. She would win many a more popular triumph +in days to come, but what were all of them compared to the honour of +having compelled the writer to admit that he had blundered. + +"Though this part of Leonora in itself was of so little value, that +when she got more into esteem it was one of the several she gave away +to inferior actresses; yet it was the first (as I have observed) that +corrected my judgment of her, and confirmed me in a strong belief +that she could not fail in very little time of being what she was +afterwards allow'd to be, the foremost ornament of our Theatre." + +It takes but slight exercise of fancy to see inside the stuffy little +theatre of Bath, on that memorable summer afternoon, when "Sir Courtly +Nice"[A] is produced, with Cibber in the foppish title-rôle and the +fair unknown as Leonora, "Belguard's sister, in love with Farewell." +Her fat, peaceful, and phlegmatic Majesty, Anne Stuart, is in the +royal box, perhaps (although she is far from being a playgoer), and +with her retinue may be seen her dearest of friends, Sarah Churchill, +now Duchess of Marlborough, and the most brilliant political Amazon of +her time. How appropriate, by-the-way, that they should be together at +the comedy. The whole intimacy of the two, gentle Sovereign and fiery +subject, is nothing more or less than a curious play, wherein Anne +takes the rôle of Queen (unwillingly enough, poor thing, for she was +born to be bourgeoise) and the Duchess assumes the leading part. +Unfortunate "Mrs. Morley"![B] You have a weary time of it, trying to +act up to royalty when you would be so much happier as a middle-class +housewife, and, perhaps, you have never been more bored than you are +to-day in viewing "Sir Courtly Nice." Nor can the performance be as +delightful as it might otherwise prove to her of Marlborough; 'tis but +a few months since her son, the Marquis of Blandford, had ended in +small-pox a career which promised to carry on the greatness of his +house. + +[Footnote A: "Sir Courtly Nice; or, It Cannot be," was from the pen of +John Crown. In dedicating it to the Duke of Ormond, as can be seen in +the original publication of the piece ("London, Printed by H.H. Jun. +for R. Bently, in Russell street, Covent Garden, and Jos. Hindmarsh, +at the Golden-Ball over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill, +MDCLXXXV"). The author says: "This comedy was Written by the Sacred +Command of our late Most Excellent King, of ever blessed and beloved +Memory (Charles II.). I had the great good fortune to please Him often +at his Court in my Masque, on the Stage in Tragedies and Comedies, and +so to advance myself in His good opinion; an Honour may render a +wiser Man than I vain; for I believe he had more equals in extent of +Dominion than of Understanding. The greatest pleasure he had from the +Stage was in Comedy, and he often Commanded me to Write it, and lately +gave me a Spanish Play called 'No' Puedeser Or, It Cannot Be' out of +which I took part o' the Name and design o' this."] + +[Footnote B: It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that in the +private correspondence between Anne and the Duchess of Marlborough, +the former signed herself "Mrs. Morley," while her friend masqueraded +as "Mrs. Freeman."] + +The comedy is about to begin as a common-looking person makes his +appearance in the box. He is a dull, heavy fellow, who suggests +nothing more strongly than a fondness for brown October ale and a good +dinner into the bargain. Anne turns towards him with as affectionate +a glance as she thinks it seeming to bestow in public. Is he not her +husband, George of Denmark, and the father of all those children whom +she never has succeeded in rearing to man's, or woman's, estate? He is +a faithful consort, too, which is saying not a little in the days when +Royal constancy, on the male side, is the rarest of jewels. George +has vices, to be sure, but they belong to the stomach rather than the +heart--that obese heart which, such as it is, the good Queen can call +her own. + +"Hath your Royal Highness ever seen this Cibber act?" asked the +Duchess, by way of making conversation. She never stands on ceremony +with soft-pated George, and does not wait to speak until she is spoken +to. + +"Cibber--Cibber--who be Cibber?" queries the Prince, a beery look in +his eye, a foreign accent on his tongue. + +"He's the son of the sculptor, Caius Gabriel Cibber, your Highness." + +"I do not know--I do not know," mutters George drowsily. Then he falls +asleep in the box, and snores so deeply that Manager Rich, who has +been in the front of the house, pokes his inquisitive face into the +poorly-lighted auditorium, and quickly pokes it back again. + +But hush! Wake up, Prince, and look at the stage. The play has begun, +and some member of the company, we know not who, has recited the +archaic prologue, which asks: + + "What are the Charmes, by which these happy Isles + Hence gain'd Heaven's brightest and eternal smiles? + What Nation upon Earth besides our own + But by a loss like ours had been undone? + Ten Ages scarce such Royal worths display + As England lost, and found in one strange Day. + One hour in sorrow and confusion hurld, + And yet the next the envy of the World." + +[Illustration: COLLEY CIBBER + +In the character of "Sir Novelty Fashion, newly created Lord +Foppington," in Vanbrugh's play of "The Relapse, or, Virtue in +Danger." + +_From the Painting by_ J. GRISONI, _the property of the Garrick Club_] + +The King is dead! Long live the Queen! The prologue was written in +honour of his most Catholic Majesty James II. and his consort, Marie +Beatrice of Modena, but the opening lines are admirably adapted to +flatter Anne, and so they are retained, even though what follows +happens to be new.[A] + +[Footnote A: The remainder of the original prologue, had it been +recited, would have raised a storm.] + +But what care we for the prologue when the first scene is on and +Violante and Leonora are confessing their respective love affairs, as +women always do--on the stage. Leonora has a dragon of a brother who +would compel her to marry that pink of empty propriety, Sir Courtly, +but she rebels against the admirer selected for her, as all well-bred +young women should in plays, and sets her heart upon another. In +consequence there is trouble of the dear old romantic kind. + +"I never stir out, but as they say the Devil does, with chains and +torments," Leonora tells Violante. "She that is my Hell at home is so +abroad." + +"Vio. A New Woman? + +"LEO. No, an old Woman, or rather an old Devil; nay, worse than an old +Devil, an old Maid. + +"Vio. Oh, there's no Fiend so Envious. + +"LEO. Right; she will no more let young People sin, than the Devil +will let 'em be sav'd, out of envy to their happiness. + +"Vio. Who is she? + +"LEO. One of my own blood, an Aunt. + +"Vio. I know her. She of thy blood? She has not a drop of it these +twenty years; the Devil of envy sucked it all out, and let verjuice in +the roome." + +These lines are decidedly unfeminine and coarse, as viewed from a +nineteenth century standard, and there is nothing in them to recommend +the two girls to the particular favour of the audience. Yet, in +the case of Leonora, they are given with such rare spirit, and the +speaker, with her almost sensuous charm and the melody of that +marvellous voice, is so fascinating, that the house is suddenly caught +in some entrancing spell. Oldfield has burst upon it in all the sudden +glory of a newly unfolded flower, and murmurs of admiration and +surprise are heard on every side. More than this, Queen Anne, whose +thoughts may have been far away with the dead Duke of Gloucester, +betrays a sudden interest in the performance, and thus sets the +fashion for all those around her, excepting his most sleepy Royal +Highness, the Prince of Denmark. He dozes on; twenty angels from +heaven would not disturb him. + +As the play proceeds, the curiosity centres around the new Leonora, +so that even the scene where Sir Courtly is found making the most +elaborate of toilets, with the assistance of a bevy of vocalists, does +not exert the attraction to be found in the presence of Oldfield. The +episode is all very funny, of course, and there is an appreciative +titter when the fop defines the characteristics of a gentleman: + +"Complaisance, fine hands, a mouth well furnished-- + +"SERVANT. With fine language? + +"SIR COURTLY. Fine teeth, you sot; fine language belongs to pedants +and poor fellows that live by their wits. Men of quality are above +wit. 'Tis true, for our diversion, sometimes we write, but we ne'er +regard wit. I write, but I never write any wit. + +"SERVANT. How then, sir? + +"SIR COURTLY. I write like a gentleman, soft and easy." + +It is only a titter, however, that Cibber can produce this afternoon, +or evening,[A] nor does the audience take the usual relish in that +touch-and-go rubbish of a duet sung by a supposed Indian and his love, +a duet in which the former declares: + + "My other Females all Yellow, fair or Black, + To thy Charmes shall prostrate fall, + As every kind of elephant does + To the white Elephant Buitenacke. + And thou alone shall have from me + Jimminy, Gomminy, whee, whee, whee, + The Gomminy, Jimminy, whee." + +To which the lovely maiden answers: + + "The great Jaw-waw that rules our Land, + And pearly Indian sea + Has not so absolute Command + As thou hast over me, + With a Jimminy, Gomminy, Gomminy, + Jimminy, Jimminy, Gomminy, whee." + +[Footnote A: Theatrical performances in this reign generally began at +5 p.m.] + +When the play is over Nance can take a new part, that of a feminine +conqueror. She has overshadowed Colley Cibber, who is more dazed than +chagrined at the _dénouement_, and she has proved more potent for the +public amusement than all the beauties of "Jimminy, Gomminy," with its +elephants, its jaw-waw, and its pearly Indian Sea. As she sits in the +green-room, smiling in girlish triumph while she looks around at the +beaux and players who crowd about her, anxious to worship the rising +star, her eloquent glance falls on George Farquhar. There is a tear +in his eye, but a radiant expression about the face. What does the +Oldfield's success mean to the Captain? Perhaps Anne knows, as she +throws him a tender recognition; perhaps she thinks of that song in +"Sir Courtly Nice" which runs: + + "Oh, be kind, my dear, be kind, + Whilst our Loves and we are Young; + We shall find, we shall find, + Time will change the face or mind, + Youth will not continue long. + Oh, be kind, my dear, be kind." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AN ENTRE-ACTE + + +While Anne Oldfield is resting from her first triumph and preparing +for another, let us glance for a moment at the theatrical conditions +which surround her. Curious, perplexing conditions they are, marking +as they do a transition between the brilliant but generally filthy +period of the Restoration--a period in which some of the worst and +some of the best of plays saw the light--and the time when the +punctilio and artificial decency of the age will cast over the stage +the cold light of formality and restraint. The nation is but slowly +recovering from the licentiousness which characterised the merry reign +of Charles II., that witty, sceptical sovereign, who never believed in +the honesty of man nor the virtue of frail woman. The playwrights are +recovering too, yet, if anything, more tardily than the people; for +when a nasty cynicism, like that pervading the old comedies, is once +boldly cultivated, many a long day must elapse ere it can be replaced +by a cleaner, healthier spirit. + +Charles has surely had much to answer for at the bar of public opinion +(a bar for which he evidently felt a profound contempt), and the evil +influence which he and his Court exerted on the drama supplies one of +the greatest blots on his moral 'scutcheon. Augustus William Schlegel, +that foreigner who studied the literature of the English stage as few +Britons have ever done, well pointed out that while the Puritans had +brought Republican principles and religious zeal into public odium, +this light-hearted monarch seemed expressly born to dispel all respect +for the kingly dignity. "England was inundated with the foreign +follies and vices in his train. The Court set the fashion of the most +undisguised immorality, and this example was the more extensively +contagious, as people imagined that they showed their zeal for the +new order of things by an extravagant way of thinking and living. +The fanaticism of the Republicans had been accompanied with true +strictness of manners, and hence nothing appeared more convenient than +to obtain the character of Royalists by the extravagant inclination +for all lawful and unlawful pleasures. + +"The age of Louis XIV. was nowhere imitated with greater depravity. +The prevailing gallantry at the Court of France was not without +reserve and tenderness of feeling; they sinned, if I may so speak, +with some degree of dignity, and no man ventured to attack what was +honourable, though his own actions might not exactly coincide with it. +The English played a part which was altogether unnatural to them; they +gave themselves heavily up to levity; they everywhere confounded +the coarsest licentiousness with free mental vivacity, and did not +perceive that the sort of grace which is still compatible with +depravity, disappears with the last veil which it throws off." + +As Schlegel goes on to say, we can easily imagine into what direction +the tastes of the English people drifted under such auspices. "They +possessed no real knowledge of the fine arts, and these were merely +favoured like other foreign fashions and inventions of luxury. They +neither felt a true want of poetry, nor had any relish for it; they +merely wished to be entertained in a brilliant and light manner. The +theatre, which in its former simplicity had attracted the spectators +solely by the excellence of the dramatic works and the actors, was now +furnished out with all the appendages with which we are at this +day familiar; but what is gained in external decoration is lost in +internal worth." + +In other words, the theatrical life and literature of the Restoration +was morally rotten to the core. How that rottenness has been giving +way, during the childhood of Nance Oldfield, to what may be styled a +comparative decency, need not be described here. Suffice it to explain +that such a change is taking place, and let us accordingly sing, +rejoice and give thanks for small mercies. Thalia has ceased to be a +wanton; she is fast becoming quite a respectable young woman, and as +to Melpomene--well, that severe Muse is actually waxing religious. + +Religious? Yes, verily, for will not all good Londoners read in the +course of a year or two that there will be a performance of "Hamlet" +at Drury Lane "towards the defraying the charge of repairing and +fitting up the chapel in Russell Court," said performance to be given +"with singing by Mr. Hughes, and entertainment of dancing by Monsieur +Cherier, Miss Lambro his scholar, and Mr. Evans. Boxes, 5s.; pit, 3s.; +gallery, 2s.; upper gallery, 1s." + +Here was an ideal union of church and stage with a vengeance, the one +being served by the other, and the whole thing done to the secular +accompaniment of singing and dancing. For an instant the town was +scandalised, but Defoe, that perturbed spirit for whom there was no +such word as rest, saw the humour of the situation. + +"Hard times, gentlemen, hard times these are indeed with the Church," +he informs the promoters of this ecclesiastical benefit, "to send her +to the playhouse to gather pew-money. For shame, gentlemen! go to the +Church and pay your money there, and never let the playhouse have +such a claim to its establishment as to say the Church is beholden to +her.... Can our Church be in danger? How is it possible? The whole +nation is solicitous and at work for her safety and prosperity. The +Parliament address, the Queen consults, the Ministry execute, the +Armies fight, and all for the Church; but at home we have other heroes +that act for the Church. Peggy Hughes sings, Monsieur Ramandon plays, +Miss Santlow dances, Monsieur Cherier teaches, and all for the Church. +Here's heavenly doings! here's harmony!" + +"In short," concludes the author of "Robinson Crusoe," "the +observations on this most preposterous piece of Church work are so +many, they cannot come into the compass of this paper; but if the +money raised here be employed to re-edify this chapel, I would have +it, as is very frequent, in like cases, written over the door in +capital letters: 'This church was re-edified anno 1706, at the expense +and by the charitable contribution of the enemies of the reformation +of our morals, and to the eternal scandal and most just reproach of +the Church of England and the Protestant religion. Witness our hands, + + "LUCIFER, Prince of Darkness,| + and | _Churchwardens_."[A] + HAMLET, Prince of Denmark, | + +[Footnote A: _Review_, June 20, 1706.] + +The "enemies of the reformation of our morals!" Defoe used the +expression satirically, but how well it suited the minds of many pious +persons, ranging all the way from bishops to humble laymen, who could +see nothing in the theatre excepting the prospective flames of the +infernal regions. Clergymen preached against the playhouse then, just +as some of them have done since, and will continue so to do until +the arrival of the Millennium. Oftentimes the criticisms of these +well-meaning gentlemen had more than a grain of truth to make them +half justifiable. The stage was still far from pure, in spite of +the improvement which was going on steadily enough, and there is no +denying the fact that several of the worst plays of the Restoration +could still claim admirers. Even "Sir Courtly Nice," wherein occurs +one of the most indecent passages ever penned, and one of the most +suggestive of songs, was received without a murmur. Congreve was +pardoned for his breaches of decorum, and Dryden was looked upon as +quite proper enough for all purposes. + +The _morale_ of the players could hardly be called unimpeachable, at +least in some instances, but the violations of social rules were not +so open as they had been in the old days. Here and there a frail +actress might depart from the stony path of virtue, or an actor give +himself up to wine and the dodging of bailiffs, yet the attending +scandals were not flaunted in the face of the public. In other words, +there were Thespians of doubtful reputation then, just as there are +now, and these black sheep helped materially to keep up against their +white brethren that remarkable prejudice which has endured even unto +the present decade. + +As a class, the players had no social position of any kind, although +the great ones of the earth, the men of rank, never hesitated to +hobnob with them when, like Mrs. Gamp, they felt "so dispoged." Even +in the enlightened reign of Queen Anne, there existed among many +intelligent persons the vague idea that one who trod the boards was +nothing more or less than a vagabond, and we are not surprised to +learn, therefore, that in a royal proclamation of the period, "players +and mountebanks" are mentioned in the same sentence, as though there +was little difference between them. + +Perhaps, the "artists" to whom the title of vagabond might be applied +with a certain degree of justice were the strolling players, who seem +to have been much after the fashion of others of their ilk, before +and since. Good-natured, poverty-stricken barnstormers they doubtless +were, living from-hand-to-mouth, and quite willing to go through the +whole gamut of tragedy, from Shakespeare to Dryden, for the sake of +a good supper. Here is a graphic picture of such a band of dramatic +ne'er-do-wells, drawn by Dick Steele in the forty-eighth issue of the +_Spectator_: + +"We have now at this place [this is a letter of an imaginary +correspondent to 'Mr. Spectator'] a company of strollers, who are very +far from offending in the impertinent splendor of the drama. They are +so far from falling into these false gallantries, that the stage is +here in his original situation of a cart. Alexander the Great was +acted by a fellow in a paper cravat. The next day, the Earl of Essex +seemd to have no distress but his poverty; and my Lord Foppington the +same morning wanted any better means to show himself a fop than by +wearing stockings of different colours.[A] In a word, though they have +had a full barn for many days together, our itinerants are still so +wretchedly poor, that without you can prevail to send us the furniture +you forbid at the playhouse, the heroes appear only like sturdy +beggars, and the heroines gypsies. We have had but one part which was +performed and dressed with propriety, and that was Justice Clodpate. +This was so well done, that it offended Mr. Justice Overdo, who, in +the midst of our whole audience, was (like Quixote in the puppet show) +so highly provoked, that he told them, if they would move compassion, +it should be in their own persons and not in the characters of +distressed princes and potentates. He told them, if they were so good +at finding the way to people's hearts, they should do it at the end of +bridges or church porches, in their proper vocation as beggars. This, +the justice says, they must expect, since they could not be contented +to act heathen warriors, and such fellows as Alexander, but must +presume to make a mockery of one of the Quorum." + +[Footnote A: It must be remembered that theatrical costumes, as we see +them to-day, did not exist. The art of dressing correctly, according +to the nature of the character and the period in which the play was +supposed to occur, was practically unknown. Even in after years we +hear of Spranger Barry playing Othello in a gold-laced scarlet suit, +small cocked hat, and knee-breeches, with silk stockings. Think of +it, ye sticklers for realism! Dr. Doran narrates how Garrick dressed +Hamlet in a court suit of black coat, "waistcoat and knee-breeches, +short wig with queue and bag, buckles in the shoes, ruffles at the +wrists, and flowing ends of an ample cravat hanging over his chest." +Barton Booth's costume for Cato was even more of an anachronism. "The +Cato of Queen Anne's day wore a flowered gown and an ample wig."] + +Poor strollers. There was a bit of stern philosophy in the advice +of the justice, for they would probably have led a merrier and more +luxurious life had they deserted the barns for the bridges and +church-porches. Perhaps the same change would suit the wandering +players who are to be found in these last years of the nineteenth +century, travelling from one third-class hotel to another, and +wondering whether they will ever make enough money to return home and +sun themselves on the New York Rialto. + +Humble as they were in the time of Queen Anne, her Government saw fit +to subject the strollers to what might be called police regulation, +and the Master of the Revels, who was a censor of plays and a +supervisor-in-general of theatrical matters, had to issue an imposing +order setting forth that whereas "several Companies of Strolling +Actors pretend to have Licenses from Noblemen,[A] and presume under +that pretence to avoid the Master of the Revels, his Correcting +their Plays, Drolls, Farces, and Interludes: which being against Her +Majesty's Intentions and Directions to the said Master: These are to +signifie That such Licenses are not of any Force or authority. There +are likewise several Mountebanks Acting upon Stages, and Mountbanks +on Horseback, Persons that keep Poppets, and others that make Shew +of Monsters, and strange Sights of Living Creatures, who presume to +Travel without the said Master of the Revels' Licence," &c. &c. The +whole pronunciamento went to show that the despised strollers were not +beneath the notice of a lynx-eyed Government. + +[Footnote A: A survival of the days when noblemen often had their own +companies of actors, and were empowered to regulate the performances +of these dramatic servants.] + +It is curious that the functionary to whom was assigned the important +critical duty of revising plays should also be obliged to concern +himself with the doings of puppets and country "side shows." Yet +before the law there was very little if any difference between a +performance of "Hamlet" by the great Betterton, and an exhibition of +the marital infelicities of Punch and Judy. Are matters so much better +now that we can afford to laugh at the incongruity? Do not theatres +devoted to the "legitimate" and dime museums, the homes of +triple-pated men, human corkscrews and other intellectual freaks, come +under the same police supervision, and rank one and all within the +same classification as "places of amusement?" Nay, to go further and +fare worse, do not some of these very freaks regard themselves as +fellow-workers in the dramatic vineyard made so fertile through the +toil of a Booth, a Mansfield or a Terry? The writer has himself heard +the manipulator of a marionette troupe (whose wife, by-the-way, posed +in a curio hall as a "Babylonian Princess") speak of Sir Henry Irving +as "a brother professional." + +This complacent individual had his prototype during the very period +which we are considering. He was an artistic gentleman named Crawley, +the happy manager of a puppet show which used to bring joy into the +hearts of the merry people thronging the famous Bartholomew Fair. One +fine day, as the manager was standing outside of his booth, he was put +into a flutter of excitement by the approach of the mighty Betterton, +in company with a country friend. The actor offered several shillings +for himself and rustic as they were about to enter the show, but this +was too much for Crawley. He saw the chance of his life, and took +advantage of it. "No, no, sir," he said to "Old Thomas," with quite +the patronising air of an equal, "we never take money of one another!" +Betterton did not see the matter in the same light, and, indignantly +throwing down the silver, stalked into the booth without so much as +thanking the proprietor of the puppets. + +What a Bedlam of a place Bartholomew must have been, with its noise, +its gew-gaws, bad beer, cheap shows, and riotous visitors. Ned Ward, +to whose descriptions modern readers are indebted, partly through the +aid of John Ashton,[A] for many a glimpse of old-time London life, +has left us a vivid picture of the fair as it appeared to him. The +entrance to it, he says, was like unto a "Belfegor's concert," with +its "rumbling of drums, mixed with the intolerable squalling of +catcalls and penny trumpets." Nor could the sense of smell have been +much better catered to than that of hearing, owing to the "singeing +of pigs and burnt crackling of over-roasted pork." Once within the +enclosure he saw all sorts of remarkable things, including the actors, +"strutting round their balconies in their tinsey robes and golden +leather buskins;" the rope-dancers, and the dirty eating-places, where +"cooks stood dripping at their doors, like their roasted swine's +flesh." Ward also looked on at several comedies, or "droles," being +enacted in the grounds, and, after coming to the conclusion that they +were like "State fireworks," and "never do anybody good but those that +are concerned in the show," he repaired to a dancing booth. Here he +had the privilege of watching a woman "dance with glasses full of +liquor upon the backs of her hands, to which she gave variety of +motions, without spilling." + +[Footnote A: See Ashton's "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne."] + +All this may have a curious interest, but it looks a trifle +inconsistent, does it not, to lament the unjustness of connecting +puppet entertainments and the like with the stage, and then +deliberately devote space to the mysteries of Bartholomew Fair? It is +more to the purpose to speak of the two theatres which claimed the +attention of London playgoers in the year 1703--the Theatre Royal, +Drury Lane, and the house in Lincoln's Inn Fields. + +Of the two, Drury Lane was the more important in an historical sense, +having been the house of the famous "King's Company," as the players +of Charles II. were styled, and then of the combined forces formed +in 1682 by the union of this organisation and the "Duke of York's +Company." This was the house into which Nance Oldfield came as a +modest _débutante_. It had been built from the designs of Wren, to +replace the old theatre destroyed by fire in 1672. + +Cibber has sketched for us the second Drury Lane's interior, as it +appeared in its original form, before the making of changes intended +to enlarge the seating capacity. "It must be observed then, that the +area or platform of the old stage projected about four feet forwarder +(_sic_), in a semi-oval figure, parallel to the benches of the pit; +and that the former lower doors of entrance for the actors were +brought down between the two foremost (and then only) pilasters; in +the place of which doors now the two stage boxes are fixt. That where +the doors of entrance now are, there formerly stood two additional +side-wings, in front to a full set of scenes, which had then almost a +double effect in their loftiness and magnificence. + +"By this original form, the usual station of the actors, in almost +every scene, was advanc'd at least ten foot nearer to the audience +than they now can be; because, not only from the stage's being +shorten'd in front, but likewise from the additional interposition of +those stage boxes, the actors (in respect to the spectators that fill +them) are kept so much more backward from the main audience than they +us'd to be. But when the actors were in possession of that forwarder +space to advance upon, the voice was then more in the centre of the +house, so that the most distant ear had scarce the least doubt or +difficulty in hearing what fell from the weakest utterance. All +objects were thus drawn nearer to the sense; every painted scene was +stronger; every grand scene and dance more extended; every rich or +fine-coloured habit had a more lively lustre. Nor was the minutest +motion of a feature (properly changing from the passion or humour it +suited) ever lost, as they frequently must be in the obscurity of +too great a distance. And how valuable an advantage the facility +of hearing distinctly is to every well-acted scene, every common +spectator is a judge. A voice scarce raised above the tone of a +whisper, either in tenderness, resignation, innocent distress, or +jealousy suppress'd, often have as much concern with the heart as +the most clamorous passions; and when on any of these occasions +such affecting speeches are plainly heard, or lost, how wide is the +difference from the great or little satisfaction received from them? +To all this the master of a company may say, I now receive ten pounds +more than could have been taken formerly in every full house. Not +unlikely. But might not his house be oftener full if the auditors were +oftener pleas'd? Might not every bad house, too, by a possibility of +being made every day better, add as much to one side of his account as +it could take from the other." + +The latter portion of Colley's remarks will be echoed by our own +audiences, which are so often doomed to see the most delicate of plays +acted in barns of theatres where all the sensitive effects of dialogue +and action are swallowed up in the immensity of stage and auditorium. +There is nothing more dispiriting, indeed, both to performers and +spectators, than the presentation of some comedy like the "School for +Scandal" in a house far better suited to the picturesque demands of +the "Black Crook" or the "County Circus." + +The theatre in Drury Lane, as Oldfield knew it, had a not +over-cheerful interior, the most noticeable features of which included +the pit, provided with backless benches, and surrounded by what would +now be called the Promenade. The latter, as Misson informs us,[A] was +taken up for the most part by ladies of quality. In addition to these +quarters and the boxes, there were two galleries reserved for the +common herd, but into which, no doubt, impecunious beaux, down in the +heels and at the mouth, would frequently stray. + +[Footnote A: Henre Misson's "Memoirs and Observations in his Travels +over England."] + +The performances generally began at 5 o'clock, but that there were +occasional lapses into unpunctuality, may be inferred from the +following advertisement in the _Daily Courant_ of October 5, 1703: + +"Her Majesty's Servants of the Theatre Royal being return'd from the +Bath, do intend, to-morrow, being Wednesday, the sixth of this instant +October to act a Comedy call'd 'Love Makes a Man, or the Fop's +Fortune.'[A] With singing and dancing. And whereas the audiences have +been incommoded by the Plays usually beginning too late, the Company +of the said Theatre do therefore give notice that they will constantly +begin at Five a Clock without fail, and continue the same Hour all the +Winter."[B] + +[Footnote A: One of Cibber's earlier plays.] + +[Footnote B: Quoted in "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne."] + +To the _fin de siècle_ playgoer the idea of beginning a performance +at so strange an hour seems nothing short of startling, until it be +remembered that people of quality were then wont to dine between three +and four o'clock of the afternoon. How they spent the earlier portion +of the day is not hard to relate. The men of fashion rose tardily, +feeling none the better, as a rule, for a night at club or tavern, and +then lounged about as best they could, visiting, sauntering in the +Mall,[A] or otherwise trying to pass the time until dinner. This solid +meal over they were ready for the theatre, where they occasionally +arrived in a state of unpleasant exhilaration, damning the play, +ogling the women and making themselves as obnoxious as possible to +the unfortunates who cared more for the stage than the commonplace +audience. + +[Footnote A: "It seem'd to me as if the World was turn'd top-side +turvy; for the ladies look'd like undaunted heroes, fit for government +or battle, and the gentlemen like a parcel of fawning, flattering +fops, that could bear cuckoldom with patience, make a jest of an +affront, and swear themselves very faithful and humble servants to the +petticoat; creeping and cringing in dishonor to themselves, to what +was decreed by Heaven their inferiours; as if their education had been +amongst monkeys, who (as it is said) in all cases give the preeminence +to their females."--"The Mall as described by Ned Ward."] + +And the women: what of them? They played cards, often for highly +respectable(?) stakes, or went to the theatre when there was nothing +better to do, and frittered away the greater number of the twenty-four +hours in a mode that the fashionable woman of 1898 would consider +positively scandalous. Sometimes the dear creatures went for a stroll +in the Mall, there to meet the English coxcombs with French manners, +or else they paid a few visits. + +"Thus they take a sip of tea, then for a draught or two of scandal +to digest it, next let it be ratafia, or any other favourite liquor, +scandal must be the after draught to make it sit easy on their +stomach, till the half hour's past, and they have disburthen'd +themselves of their secrets, and take coach for some other place to +collect new matter for defamation."[A] + +[Footnote A: Thomas Brown.] + +Drury Lane must have presented an animated but none the less +disorderly scene any evening during the season when a popular play +was to be given. Women in the boxes talking away for dear life, beaux +walking about the house, chattering, ogling and laughing, or even +sitting on the stage while the performance was in progress,[A] and the +orange girls running around to sell their wares and, not infrequently, +their own souls as well. + +[Footnote A: Owing in great part to the efforts of Queen Anne, this +wretched custom of allowing a few spectators to sit on the stage was +practically abolished before the close of the reign.] + + "Now turn, and see where loaden with her freight, + A damsel stands, and orange-wench is hight; + See! how her charge hangs dangling by the rim, + See! how the balls blush o'er the basket-brim; + But little those she minds, the cunning belle + Has other fish to fry, and other fruit to sell; + See! how she whispers yonder youthful peer, + See! how he smiles and lends a greedy ear. + At length 'tis done, the note o'er orange wrapt + Has reach'd the box, and lays in lady's lap." + +These lines by Nicholas Rowe form a graphic but unsavoury picture +of the demoralisation to be found in an early eighteenth century +audience. Affairs were much better than they used to be in the +_laissez-faire_ Restoration period, but, as may be imagined, there +was still room for improvement. The rake, the cynic and the +loosely-moraled women were still abroad in the land (have we quite +done with them even yet?), and many a hard struggle would take place +before the artificial restraint and decorum of the Georgian era would +triumph over the mocking spirit of Charles Stuart and his professional +idlers. In the meantime, as Shadwell relates, the rakes "live as much +by their wits as ever; and to avoid the clinking dun of a boxkeeper, +at the end of one act they sneak to the opposite side 'till the end +of another; then call the boxkeeper saucy rascal, ridicule the poet, +laugh at the actors, march to the opera, and spunge away the rest of +the evening." And he goes on to say that "the women of the town take +their places in the pit with their wonted assurance. The middle +gallery is fill'd with the middle part of the city, and your high +exalted galleries are grac'd with handsome footmen, that wear their +master's linen."[A] + +[Footnote A: The footmen were sometimes sent, early in the afternoon, +to keep places in the theatre until their masters or mistresses should +arrive. They created so much disturbance, however, that a stop had to +be put to the practice, and the servants were relegated to the upper +gallery. To this they were given free admission.] + +And now for a few pages about Drury Lane's rival, the theatre within +the walls of the old tennis court in Lincoln's Inn Fields. It was +the home of the company headed by the noble Betterton, the "English +Roscius," who had, in 1695, headed the revolt against the management +of the other house. At that time the tide of popular success at Drury +Lane had reached a rather low ebb, a painful circumstance due, no +doubt, to the fickleness of a public that was beginning to tire of +the favourite players and to betray a fondness for operatic and +spectacular productions rather than the "legitimate." Christopher +Rich, the manager of the theatre, was, like many of his kind, more +given to considering the weight of his purse than the scant supply of +sentiment with which nature might originally have endowed him, and so +he tried to do two characteristic things. The salaries of his faithful +employés should be reduced and the older members of the company +retired into the background as much as possible. Younger faces must +occupy the centre of the stage; even Betterton, the greatest actor of +his time, should be supplanted in some of his parts by the dissolute +George Powell, and the genius of Mrs. Barry,[A] whom Dryden thought +the greatest actress he had ever seen, was to give way to the less +matured charms of the lovely Anne Bracegirdle. + +[Footnote A: Mrs. Barry is said to have been a very elegant dresser; +but, like most of her contemporaries, she was not a very correct one. +Thus, in the "Unhappy Favourite," she played Queen Elizabeth, and in +the scene of the crowning she wore the coronation robes of James II.'s +Queen; and Ewell says she gave the audience a strong idea of the +first-named Queen.--DORAN'S "Annals of the Stage."] + +Cibber relates the story in a sympathetic vein. "Though the success of +the 'Prophetess' and 'King Arthur' (two dramatic operas in which the +patentees[A] had embark'd all their hopes) was in appearance very +great, yet their whole receipts did not so far balance their expense +as to keep them out of a large debt, which it was publicly known was +about this time contracted.... Every branch of the theatrical trade +had been sacrificed to the necessary fitting out those tall ships +of burthen that were to bring home the Indies. Plays of course were +neglected, actors held cheap, and slightly dress'd, while singers and +dancers were better paid, and embroider'd. These measures, of course, +created murmurings on one side, and ill-humour and contempt on the +other." + +[Footnote A: Alexander Davenant, Charles Killigrew, and Rich.] + +"When it became necessary therefore to lessen the charge, a resolution +was taken to begin with the salaries of the actors; and what seem'd +to make this resolution more necessary at this time was the loss of +Nokes, Montfort and Leigh, who all dy'd about the same year. No wonder +then, if when these great pillars were at once remov'd the building +grew weaker and the audiences very much abated. Now in this distress, +what more natural remedy could be found than to incite and encourage +(tho' with some hazard) the industry of the surviving actors? But the +patentees, it seems, thought the surer way was to bring down their pay +in proportion to the fall of their audiences. To make this project +more feasible they propos'd to begin at the head of 'em, rightly +judging that if the principals acquiesc'd, their inferiors would +murmur in vain. + +"To bring this about with a better grace, they, under pretence of +bringing younger actors forward, order'd several of Betterton's +and Mrs. Barry's chief parts to be given to young Powel and Mrs. +Bracegirdle. In this they committed two palpable errors; for while +the best actors are in health, and still on the stage, the public is +always apt to be out of humour when those of a lower class pretend to +stand in their places." + +And with a bit more of this timely philosophy--to which, let it be +hoped, he ever lived up to himself--Colley goes on to say that, +"tho' the giddy head of Powel accepted the parts of Betterton, Mrs. +Bracegirdle had a different way of thinking, and desir'd to be excused +from those of Mrs. Barry; her good sense was not to be misled by the +insidious favour of the patentees; she knew the stage was wide enough +for her success, without entering into any such rash and invidious +competition with Mrs. Barry, and, therefore, wholly refus'd acting any +part that properly belong'd to her." + +Then came the revolt, which the astute Betterton ("a cunning old fox" +Gildon once dubbed him) seems to have managed with all the diplomacy +of a Machiavelli. "Betterton upon this drew into his party most of the +valuable actors, who, to secure their unity, enter'd with him into a +sort of association to stand or fall together." In the meantime he +pushed the war into Africa, or, to change the simile, determined to +lead his people out of the land of bondage, as exemplified by Drury +Lane, and settle down in a new theatre. Nay, the "cunning old fox" +even went so far as to secure an interview with his most august +sovereign, William of Orange. What an audience it must have been, +with William, stiff, uncomfortable, and unintentionally repellant, +confronted by the greatest of living "Hamlets" and a group of other +players made brilliant by the presence of the imperial but not too +moral Mistress Barry, the lovely Bracegirdle, breathing the perfume of +virtue, real or assumed, and the fascinating Verbruggen.[A] Perhaps +the King found them an interesting lot, perhaps he merely regarded +them with the same good-natured curiosity he might have exhibited for +a pack of mountebanks, but in either case he was determined, with that +sombre seriousness so typical of him, to do his duty in the premises. +So he listened patiently to their complaints, and the result of it all +was that by the advice of the Earl of Dorset, the Lord Chamberlain, a +royal licence, allowing the revolters to act in a separate theatre, +was duly issued. A subscription for the erection of the new house was +immediately opened, people of quality paid in anywhere from twenty to +forty guineas a piece, and the whole affair assumed permanent shape. +Poor, tired, pre-occupied William had done what was expected of him, +lifting his eyes for the nonce from the real world, as represented by +the map of Europe, to gaze upon his subjects of the mimic boards. + +[Footnote A: Mrs. Verbruggen and Joseph Williams seceded from the new +company almost at once.] + +"My having been a witness of this unnecessary rupture," writes Cibber, +"was of great use to me when, many years after, I came to be a menager +myself. I laid it down as a settled maxim, that no company could +flourish while the chief actors and the undertakers were at variance. +I therefore made it a point while it was possible upon tolerable +terms, to keep the valuable actors in humour with their station; and +tho' I was as jealous of their encroachments as any of my co-partners +could be, I always guarded against the least warmth in any +expostulations with them; not but at the same time they might see I +was perhaps more determin'd in the question than those that gave a +loose to their resentment, and when they were cool were as apt to +recede." + +Colley was shrewd enough in dealing with players, and, as any one who +has ever had aught to do with them knows, the majority of Thespians +must be treated with the greatest tact. They are sensitive and +high-strung, yet often as unreasonable as children, and the man who +can rule over them with ease should be snapped up by an appreciative +government to conduct its most diplomatic of missions. With the +theatrical stars of his own day Cibber seems to have been firm but +prudent. "I do not remember," he tells us, "that ever I made a promise +to any that I did not keep, and, therefore, was cautious how I made +them." A fine sentiment, dear sir, eminently fit for a copy book, but +we can well believe that your promises never erred on the side of +extravagance. + +It is a fascinating subject, this study of old-time stage +life--fascinating, at least for the writer, who is tempted to run on +garrulously, describing the doings of Betterton in the new theatre, +and then wandering off to speak of the establishment of Italian opera +in England. But the limits of the chapter are reached; let us bid +good-bye to "Old Thomas," whose + + "Setting sun still shoots a glimmering ray, + Like ancient Rome, majestic in decay," + +and hasten to worship the rising sun, in the person of Mistress +Oldfield. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A BELLE OF METTLE + + +"For let me tell you, gentlemen, courage is the whole mystery of +making love, and of more use than conduct is in war; for the bravest +fellow in Europe may beat his brains out against the stubborn walls of +a town--but + + "Women born to be controll'd, + Stoop to the forward and the bold." + +These lines, taken hap-hazard from Colley Cibber's "Careless Husband," +contain the very spirit and essence of that old English comedy wherein +the hero was nothing more than a handsome rake and the heroine--well, +not a straitlaced Puritan or a prude. They breathe of the time when +honesty and virtue went for naught upon the stage, and the greatest +honours were awarded to the theatrical Prince Charming who proved +more unscrupulous than his fellows. Yet, strange as it may seem, the +"Careless Husband" is a vast improvement, in point of decency, on many +of the plays that preceded it, and marks a turning point in the moral +atmosphere of those that came after. "He who now reads it for the +first time," says Doran, "may be surprised to hear that in this comedy +a really serious and eminently successful attempt to reform the +licentiousness of the drama was made by one who had been himself a +great offender. Nevertheless the fact remains. In Lord Morelove we +have the first lover in English comedy, since licentiousness possessed +it, who is at once a gentleman and an honest man. In Lady Easy we have +what was hitherto unknown or laughed at--a virtuous married woman." To +go further, it may be added that the story points an unexceptionable +moral, proving that the best thing for a husband to do in this world +is to be true to the legitimate companion of his joys and sorrows. + +With all this in favour of the "Careless Husband," it is a curious +fact that the play, if presented in its original form, would not be +tolerated by the audiences of to-day.[A] The dialogue is often coarse +and suggestive, although for the most part full of sparkle and mother +wit, while the plot smacks of intrigue, lying and adultery. But it is +a fine work for all that; there is a delightful flavour about it, as +of old wine, and we feel in reading each successive scene that we are +uncorking a rare literary bottle of the vintage 1704. How much of the +vintage of 1898 will stand, equally well, the uncorking process if +applied in a century or two from now? How many plays in vogue at +present will be read with pleasure at that distant period? Will they +be the gruesome affairs of Ibsen, still tainted with their putrid air +of unhealthy mentality, or the clever performances of Henry Arthur +Jones; the dramas of Bronson Howard or the farcical skits of Mr. Hoyt? + +[Footnote A: Were the "Careless Husband" adapted to suit the exacting +requirements of nineteenth century modesty, its brilliancy would be +gone.] + +The "Careless Husband" has not been acted these many, many years, yet +to all who treasure the historical memories of the stage it should +be recalled with interest, for it was in this gay comedy that +the ravishing Nance shone forth in all the silvery light of her +resplendent genius. Read the pages of the old play in unsympathetic +mood and they may look musty and worm-eaten, but imagine Oldfield as +the sprightly Lady Betty Modish, the elegant Wilks as Sir Charles +Easy, and Cibber[A] himself in the empty-headed rôle of Lord +Foppington, and, presto! everything is changed. The yellow leaves are +white and fresh, the words stand out clear and distinct, and it takes +but a slight flight of fancy to hear the dingy auditorium of Drury +Lane echoing and re-echoing with laughter. For 'twas at Drury Lane +that the comedy first saw the light, in December 1704, and this was +the cast: + + LORD MORELOVE .... Mr. Powell. + LORD FOPPINGTON .... Mr. Cibber. + SIR CHARLES EASY .... Mr. Wilks. + LADY BETTY MODISE .... Mrs. Oldfield. + LADY EASY .... Mrs. Knight. + LADY GRAVEAIRS .... Mrs. Moore. + MRS. EDGING .... Mrs. Lucas. + +[Footnote A: Wilks had a singular talent in representing the graces of +nature; Cibber the deformity in the affectation of them.--STEELE.] + +How the performance came about let Cibber explain. The "Apologist" has +been speaking of Oldfield's success in Leonora, and he goes on to say: + +"Upon this unexpected sally, then, of the power and disposition of so +unforseen an actress, it was that I again took up the first two acts +of the 'Careless Husband,' which I had written the summer before, and +had thrown aside in despair of having justice done to the character +of Lady Betty Modish by any one woman then among us; Mrs. Verbruggen +being now in a very declining state of health, and Mrs. Bracegirdle +out of my reach and engag'd in another company: But, as I have said, +Mrs. Oldfield having thrown out such new proffers of a genius, I was +no longer at a loss for support; my doubts were dispell'd and I had +now a new call to finish it." + +[Illustration: ROBERT WILKS _After the Painting by_ JOHN ELLYS, 1732] + +And finish the play Cibber did, casting Nance for the volatile Lady +Betty and producing it under the most brilliant auspices. The whole +assignment of characters was admirable, but the first Lady Betty, +bursting upon the town in sudden glory, threw all her companions into +the shade. Never had such a fine lady of comedy been seen, said the +critics; never had an actress (who was not expected to be over-versed +in the affairs of the "quality") displayed such gentility, +high-breeding and evidence of being--Heaven knew how--quite "to the +manner born." Never was woman so bubbling over with humour, said the +people. As for Colley, he was delighted, of course, but believing that +an honest confession is good for the soul, even for the soul of a +Poet Laureate, he has left us the following graceful tribute to the +important part played by the actress in making the "Careless Husband" +a success: + +"Whatever favourable reception this comedy has met with from the +Publick, it would be unjust in me not to place a large share of it to +the account of Mrs. Oldfield; not only from the uncommon excellence of +her action, but even from her personal manner of conversing. There +are many sentiments in the character of Lady Betty Modish that I may +almost say were originally her own, or only dress'd with a little more +care than when they negligently fell from her lively humour." + +Here we have a clue to that vivacity and _naïveté_ which distinguished +Anne off the stage as well as on. Can it be that she, rather than +Cibber, suggested this dashing bit of dialogue from the comedy: + + * * * * * + +"LADY BETTY. [_Meeting_ LADY EASY.] Oh! my dear! I am overjoyed to see +you! I am strangely happy to-day; I have just received my new scarf +from London, and you are most critically come to give me your opinion +of it. + +"LADY EASY. O! your servant, madame, I am a very indifferent judge, +you know: what, is it with sleeves? + +"LADY BETTY. O! 'tis impossible to tell you what it is! 'Tis all +extravagance both in mode and fancy, my dear; I believe there's six +thousand yards of edging in it--then such an enchanting slope from +the elbow--something so new, so lively, so noble, so _coquet_ and +charming--but you shall see it, my dear. + +"LADY EASY. Indeed I won't, my dear; I am resolv'd to mortify you for +being so wrongfully fond of a trifle. + +"LADY BETTY. Nay, now, my dear, you are ill-natured. + +"LADY EASY. Why truly, I am half angry to see a woman of your sense so +warmly concerned in the care of her outside; for when we have taken +our best pains about it, 'tis the beauty of the mind alone that gives +us lasting value. + +"LADY BETTY. Oh! my dear! my dear! you have been a married woman to a +fine purpose indeed, that know so little of the taste of mankind. Take +my word, a new fashion upon a fine woman is often a greater proof of +her value than you are aware of. + +"LADY EASY. That I can't comprehend; for you see, among the men, +nothing's more ridiculous than a new fashion. Those of the first sense +are always the last that come into' em. + +"LADY BETTY. That is, because the only merit of a man is his sense; +but doubtless the greatest value of a woman is her beauty; an homely +woman at the head of a fashion, would not be allowed in it by the men, +and consequently not followed by the women; so that to be successful +in one's fancy is an evident sign of one's being admir'd, and I always +take admiration for the best proof of beauty, as beauty certainly +is the source of power, as power in all creatures is the height of +happiness. + +"LADY EASY. At this rate you would rather be thought beautiful than +good. + +"LADY BETTY. As I had rather command than obey. The wisest homely +woman can't make a man of sense of a fool, but the veryest fool of a +beauty shall make an ass of a statesman; so that, in short, I can't +see a woman of spirit has any business in this world but to dress--and +make the men like her. + +"LADY EASY. Do you suppose this is a principle the men of sense will +admire you for? + +"LADY BETTY. I do suppose that when I suffer any man to like my +person, he shan't dare to find fault with my principle. + +"LADY EASY. But men of sense are not so easilly humbled. + +"LADY BETTY. The easiest of any. One has ten thousand times the +trouble with a coxcomb....The men of sense, my dear, make the best +fools in the world: their sincerity and good breeding throws them so +entirely into one's power, and gives one such an agreeable thirst of +using them ill, to show that power--'tis impossible not to quench it." + + * * * * * + +Compare this bristling dialogue with the inane stuff that too often +passes for comedy nowadays, and one finds all the difference between +real humour and flippancy. We stand at the threshold of the twentieth +century, boastfully proclaiming that we do everything better than ever +could our ancestors, yet where are the new comedies that might hold a +candle to the "Careless Husband," the "Inconstant," or the "School for +Scandal?" We may be presumptuous enough, nevertheless, to hold up that +much-quoted candle, but the light from it will burn pale and dim when +placed near the golden glow of the past. Would that we could purify +some of the old-time pieces and thus preserve them for future +generations of theatre-goers. Alas! that is impossible, for to cleanse +them with a sort of moral soap and water would destroy nearly all +their delightful glitter. + +The lines of Lady Betty must have fairly sizzled with the fire of +comedy as they fell from the pretty lips of Oldfield. No wonder that +Londoners thought the character bewitching; no wonder that Cibber +wrote so enthusiastically of the actress in that wonderful Apology. +"Had her birth plac'd her in a higher rank of life," he notes, perhaps +forgetting that her very descent entitled the poor sewing-girl to a +position which poverty denied her, "she had certainly appear'd in +reality what in this play she only excellently acted, an agreeably gay +woman of quality a little too conscious of her natural attractions. I +have often seen her in private societies where women of the best +rank might have borr'd some part of her behaviour without the least +diminution of their sense or dignity. And this very morning, when I am +now writing at the Bath, November 11, 1738, the same words were said +of her by a lady of condition, whose better judgment of her personal +merit in that light has embolden'd me to repeat them." + +The best of us have a wee bit of snobbishness buried deep in the +inmost recesses of our souls, and Colley, who was neither the best nor +the worst of humanity, had this quality well developed. To see that +one has but to read the above quotation between the lines. He loved a +lord as ardently as did the next man, and he attached to rank the same +exaggerated importance which pervades, with all the unwelcome odour of +sickening incense, the literature of his age. As Macklin so well said +of him, Nature formed Cibber for a coxcomb, and it is quite probable +that he took greater delight in being thought a leader of fashion than +a writer of charming plays. Indeed, he was careful to cultivate the +society of young noblemen, and this he was able to do by virtue of +his theatrical successes, and, more helpful still, by a levity of +character which stuck to him despite his great earnestness in many +directions. Perhaps his frivolity and his love of pleasure, including +the delights of the gaming table, may have been half assumed; perhaps +he was only playing one of his many parts. He certainly succeeded in +the rôle; he enlivened the dissipations of many a beau by his quaint +conceits and flashes of humour, and went on his way rejoicing that he +could be the boon companion of twenty idle lords.[A] + +[Footnote A: Colley Cibber, one of the earliest of the dramatic +autobiographers, is also one of the most amusing. He flourished in wig +and embroidery, player, poet, and manager, during the Augustan age of +Queen Anne, somewhat earlier and somewhat later. A most egregious +fop, according to all accounts, he was, but a very pleasant one +notwithstanding, as your fop of parts is apt to be. Pope gained but +little in the warfare he waged with him, for this plain reason--that +the great poet accuses his adversary of dullness, which was not by +any means one of his sins, instead of selecting one of the numerous +faults, such as pertness, petulance, and presumption, of which he was +really guilty.--M.R. Mitford.] + +If he was surprised, therefore, that Oldfield could act the high-born +woman of fashion, the "lady of condition," who shall blame him? A +tavern does not seem the proper school for deportment, and, though one +has the bluest blood in Christendom, humble surroundings may keep it +from flowing very freely. Still, Anne was naturally a thoroughbred; +the girl had a personal distinction which was hers by right of +inheritance, and what she lacked in elegance she was quick to acquire +as she grew into womanhood. + +It is a strange coincidence that the actress who in after years +rejuvenated Lady Betty[A], and made her again a living, breathing +creature, had at one period of her career been a tavern girl. Abington +it was who seemed the very incarnation of aristocracy, and made the +audience forget that, high as she stood upon the stage, she had once +been almost in the gutter. + +[Footnote A: Mrs. Abington, one of the most graceful and spirited +actresses of the eighteenth century, was born in 1731, shortly after +the death of Oldfield. She had the honour of being the original Lady +Teazle, a part which she rehearsed under the direction of Sheridan, +and she enjoyed the further distinction of being detested by Garrick. +The latter said of her: "She is below the thought of any honest man or +woman."] + +The same welcome anomaly is noticed now, when the actresses who play +the women of the "hupper circles" with the greatest delicacy and +keenness of touch are frequently the products of the lower or middle +class. On the other hand, the _dame de société_ who trips lightly from +the drawing-room to the stage, amid the blare of trumpets and the +excitement of her friends, usually fails to make a mark. To be sure, +several of them have made marks--very black ones. + +Now let us turn the pages of the "Careless Husband," as we scan them +in Lowndes's "British Theatre," and see if we cannot extract some +amusement therefrom. The scene opens in the lodgings of Sir Charles +Easy, who, like many other dramatic personages of the eighteenth +century, has a name that signifies his character. Easy, Sir Charles is +in every sense of the word, particularly easy as to morals, for the +possession of a lovely wife does not prevent him from prosecuting an +amour with a woman of quality, Lady Graveairs, or having a vulgar +intrigue with the maid of his own spouse. In fine, he is a right +amiable gentleman, according to the curious standards of long ago; a +very prince of good fellows, who in these days would pass for a cad. + +We are hardly begun with the comedy before we are introduced to this +paragon, who enters just after Lady Easy and the maid, Edging, have +discovered fresh proofs of his flirtation with Lady Graveairs. Charles +is inclined to be philosophical in a blasé, tired way, and he says: +"How like children do we judge of happiness! When I was stinted in my +fortune almost everything was a pleasure to me, because most things +then being out of my reach, I had always the pleasure of hoping for +'em; now fortune's in my hand she's as insipid as an old acquaintance. +It's mighty silly, faith, just the same thing by my wife, too; I am +told she's extremely handsome [as though the sad devil didn't know +it], nay, and have heard a great many people say she is certainly the +best woman in the world--why, I don't know but she may, yet I could +never find that her person or good qualities gave me any concern. In +my eye, the woman has no more charms than my mother"--and we may +be sure that Sir Charles had never bothered himself much about the +attractions of the last named lady. + +Then the fair Edging comes to centre of stage and the following +innocent dialogue ensues: + + * * * * * + +"EDGING. Hum--he takes no notice of me yet--I'll let him see I can +take as little notice of him. [_She walks by him gravely, he turns her +about and holds her; she struggles_.] Pray, sir! + +"SIR CHARLES. A pretty pert air that--I'll humour it--what's the +matter, child--are you not well? Kiss me, hussy. + +"EDGING. No, the deuce fetch me if I do. [Here was a model servant, of +course.] + +"SIR CHARLES. Has anything put thee out of humour, love? + +"EDGING. No, sir, 'tis not worthy my being out of humour at ... don't +you suffer my lady to huff me every day as if I were her dog, or had +no more concern with you--I declare I won't bear it and she shan't +think to huff me. For aught I know I am as agreeable as she; and +though she dares not take any notice of your baseness to her, you +shan't think to use me so--" + + * * * * * + +But enough of this delectable conversation. The picture which it gives +us is unpleasant and coarse; there is about it none of the glitter +that can make vice so alluring. We will also skip an interview between +Sir Charles and Lady Easy (who thinks it the part of diplomacy to +hide her knowledge of her master's peccadilloes), and hurry on to the +entrance of Lord Morelove, our hero. Morelove, who must have been +admirably played by the fiery, impetuous Powell, is neither a +libertine, nor, on the other hand, a prig; he is simply a gentlemanly +and essentially human fellow who is consumed with an honest passion +for Lady Betty Modish. Nay, he would be glad to marry the fine +creature, but she has quarrelled with him and he is now telling Sir +Charles all about it: + + * * * * * + +"So, disputing with her about the conduct of women, I took the liberty +to tell her how far I thought she err'd in hers; she told me I was +rude and that she would never believe any man could love a woman +that thought her in the wrong in anything she had a mind to [Rather +exacting, are you not, Lady Betty?], at least if he dared to tell her +so. This provok'd me into her whole character, with as much spite and +civil malice, as I have seen her bestow upon a woman of true beauty, +when the men first toasted her:[A] so in the middle of my wisdom, she +told me she desir'd to be alone, that I would take my odious proud +heart along with me and trouble her no more. I bow'd very low, and as +I left the room I vow'd I never wou'd, and that my proud heart should +never be humbled by the outside of a fine woman. About an hour after, +I whipp'd into my chaise for London, and have never seen her since." + +[Footnote A: Many of the wits of the last age will assert that the +word (toast), in its present sense, was known among them in their +youth, and had its rise from an accident at the town of Bath, in the +reign of Charles II. It happened that, on a public day, a celebrated +beauty of those times was in the Cross Bath, and one of the crowd of +her admirers took a glass of the water in which the fair one stood, +and drank her health to the company. There was in the place a gay +fellow half fuddled, who offered to jump in, and swore, though he +liked not the liquor, he would have the toast. He was opposed in his +resolution; yet this whim gave foundation to the present honour which +is done to the lady we mention in our liquors, who has ever since been +called a Toast.--The _Tatler_.] + + * * * * * + +What a quaint, circumspect and very ceremonious affair must that +lovers' row have been. No swearing, no slang or loud talking, but +everything deliberate and in the best of form. Lady Betty telling +Morelove to go about his business, and that quickly, but doing so with +a stately elegance worthy of the great Mrs. Barry; the suitor bowing +low, with his white hand pressed against that "odious proud heart" +which is gently breaking at the thought of departing. What a nice +painting it would make for a Watteau fan. + +Thus nearly all our characters have their entrances, Lady Betty is +revealed to us through the medium of the lively dialogue quoted a few +pages back, and then there is another stir. In comes Lord Foppington, +otherwise Colley Cibber, in all the vapid glory of fine clothes, and +a great periwig. A very prince of coxcombs, with his soft smile and +conscious air of superiority--a mere bag of vanity, whose emptiness is +partly hidden by gorgeous raiment, gold embroidery, rings, snuff-box, +muff and what-not. With what genteel condescension does he greet Sir +Charles; how gracefully nonchalant is he to my Lord Morelove. "My dear +agreeable! _Que je t'embrasse! Pardi! Il y a cent ans que je ne t'ai +veu_. My lord, I am your lordship's most obedient humble servant." + +So Foppington takes his place in the comedy, and begins to play his +brainless but important part. He, the disconsolate Morelove, and the +brilliant Lady Betty all meet at dinner with Sir Charles and Lady +Easy. Of course the hero makes an unsuccessful attempt to regain the +good graces of his inamorata, and, of course, the coxcomb carries on a +violent flirtation with her in the angry face of his rival. With the +meal over, and everybody on the _qui vive_, this scene ensues: + + * * * * * + +Enter Foppington (who has been chatting to the ladies and who now +seeks the post-dinner conversation of his host and Lord Morelove). + +"FOPPINGTON. Nay, pr'ythee, Sir Charles, let's have a little of thee. +We have been so chagrin without thee, that, stop my breath [what a +bloodcurdling oath, so suggestive of the awful curses of our own +_jeunesse d'orée_], the ladies are gone, half asleep, to church for +want of thy company. + +"SIR CHARLES. That's hard indeed, while your lordship was among 'em. +Is Lady Betty gone too? + +"FOP. She was just upon the wing. But I caught her by the snuff-box, +and she pretends to stay to see if I'll give it her again or no. + +"MORE. Death! 'tis that I gave her, and the only present she ever +would receive from me. [_Aside to_ SIR CHARLES.] Ask him how he came +by it? + +"SIR CHARLES. Pr'ythee don't be uneasy. Did she give it to you, my +lord? + +"FOP. Faith, Charles, I can't say she did or she did not, but we were +playing the fool, and I took it--_à la_--pshah--I can't tell thee in +French, neither, but Horace touches it to a nicety--'twas _Pignas +direptum male pertinaci_. [_Nota Bene_: Our modern comedians seldom +quote Horace; their humour is not of the classic kind.] + +"MORE. So! But I must bear it. If your lordship has a mind to the box, +I'll stand by you in the keeping of it. + +"FOP. My lord, I'm passionately oblig'd to you, but I am afraid I +cannot answer your hazarding so much of the lady's favour. + +"MORE. Not at all, my lord; 'tis possible I may not have the same +regard to her frown that your lordship has. [Here's a bit of human +nature. Morelove stands in awe of that frown, but he doth valiantly +protest, and that too much, that the displeasure of Lady Betty is no +more to him than a dozen of ciphers.] + +"FOP. That's a bite, I am sure--he'd give a joint of his little +finger to be as well with her as I am. [_Aside_.] But here she comes! +Charles, stand by me. Must not a man be a vain coxcomb now, to think +this creature follow'd one? + +"SIR CHARLES. Nothing so plain, my lord. + +"FOP. Flattering devil." + +_Enter_ LADY BETTY. + +"LADY BETTY. Pshah, my Lord Foppington! Pr'ythee don't play the fool +now, but give me my snuff-box. Sir Charles, help me to take it from +him. + +"SIR CHARLES. You know I hate trouble, madame. + +"LADY BETTY. Pooh! you'll make me stay still; prayers are half over +now. + +"FOP. If you'll promise me not to go to church, I'll give it you. + +"LADY BETTY. I'll promise nothing at all, for positively I will have +it. [_Struggling with him_. + +"FOP. Then comparatively I won't part with it, ha! ha! + +[_Struggles with her_. + +"LADY BETTY. O you devil, you have kill'd my arm! Oh! Well--if you'll +let me have it, I'll give you a better. + +"MORE. [_Aside to_ SIR CHARLES.] O Charles! that has a view of distant +kindness in it. + +"FOP. Nay, now I keep it superlatively. I find there's a secret value +in it. + +"LADY BETTY. O dismal! upon my word, I am only ashamed to give it you. +Do you think I wou'd offer such an odious fancy'd thing to anybody I +had the least value for? + +"SIR CHARLES. [_Aside to_ LORD MORELOVE.] Now it comes a little +nearer, methinks it does not seem to be any kindness at all. + +"FOP. Why, really, madame, upon second view, it has not extremely the +mode of a lady's utensil: are you sure it never held anything but +snuff? + +"LADY BETTY. O! you monster! + +"FOP. Nay, I only ask because it seems to me to have very much the air +and fancy of Monsieur Smoakandfot's tobacco-box. + +"MORE. I can bear no more. + +"SIR CHARLES. Why don't then; I'll step into the company and return to +your relief immediately. + +[_Exit_. + +"MORE. [_To_ LADY BETTY.] Come, madame, will your ladyship give me +leave to end the difference? Since the slightness of the thing may +let you bestow it without any mark of favour, shall I beg it of your +ladyship? + +"LADY BETTY. O my lord, no body sooner. I beg you give it my lord. + +[_Looking earnestly on_ LORD FOPPINGTON, _who, smiling, gives it to_ +LORD MORELOVE _and then bows gravely to her_]. + +"MORE. Only to have the honour of restoring it to your lordship; and +if there be any other trifle of mine your lordship has a fancy to, +tho' it were a mistress, I don't know any person in the world who has +so good a claim to my resignation." + + * * * * * + +In the hands of Powell, Cibber, and Oldfield this scene must have had +all the sparkle of champagne; but let us hope, speaking of wine, that +the prince of paragons, Morelove, was perfectly sober. Or shall we +say comparatively sober?--for when bibulous George had just a dash of +spirits within him (and that was nearly always) there came a roseate +hue to his acting which rather added to its romantic colour. Sometimes +this colour was laid on too garishly, as the supply of fire-water +happened to be larger,[A] and Sir John Vanbrugh has himself left it on +record that Powell, as Worthy, came well nigh spoiling the original +production of the "Relapse." "I own," writes Sir John, "the first +night this thing was acted, some indecencies had like to have +happened; but it was not my fault. The fine gentleman of the play, +drinking his mistress's health in Nantes brandy, from six in the +morning to the time he waddled up upon the stage in the evening, had +toasted himself up to such a pitch of vigour, I confess I once gave up +Amanda for gone; and am since, with all due respect to Mrs. Rogers, +very sorry she escaped; for I am confident a certain lady (let no one +take it to herself that is handsome) who highly blames the play, for +the barrenness of the conclusion, would then have allowed it a very +natural close." It should be added that the Mrs. Rogers herein +mentioned as playing Amanda was a capable tragic actress whose +ambition it was to enact none but virtuous women. Her own virtue--but +we are dipping into scandal.[B] + +[Footnote A: To the folly of intoxication he added the horrors of +debt, and was so hunted by the sheriffs' officers that he usually +walked the streets with a sword (sheathed) in his hand; and if he saw +any of them at a distance, he would roar out, "Get on the other side +of the way, you dog!" The bailiff, who knew his old customer, would +obligingly answer, "We do not want you _now_, Master Powell." EDMUND +BELLCHAMBERS.] + +[Footnote B: Her fondness for virtue on the stage she began to think +might persuade the world that it had made an impression on her private +life; and the appearance of it actually went so far that, in an +epilogue to an obscure play, the profits of which were given to her, +and wherein she acted a part of impregnable chastity, she bespoke +the favour of the ladies by a protestation that in honour of their +goodness and virtue she would dedicate her unblemished life to their +example. Part of this vestal vow, I remember, was contained in the +following verse:-- + + "Study to live the character I play." + +But alas! how weak are the strongest works of art when Nature besieges +it.--CIBBER.] + +As for the "Careless Husband," the more one reads from it the more +cause is there to regret the utter hopelessness of reviving a play so +honeycombed by inuendo. How delightfully, for instance, would some of +the badinage between Morelove and the spirited Lady Betty have been +treated in the earlier days of the Daly Company, with John Drew and +Miss Rehan as the lovers. We can picture the two, as they would have +given the following lines, the one gentlemanly and effective, the +other imperious, liquid-voiced, and radiant of humour: + + * * * * * + +"MORELOVE. Do you know, madame, I have just found out, that upon your +account I have made myself one of the most ridiculous puppies upon the +face of the earth--I have upon my faith! Nay, and so extravagantly +such--ha! ha! ha!--that it's at last become a jest even to myself; and +I can't help laughing at it for the soul of me; ha! ha! ha! + +"LADY BETTY. [_Aside_.] I want to cure him of that laugh now. My lord, +since you are so generous, I'll tell you another secret. Do you +know, too, that I still find (spite of all your great wisdom, and my +contemptible qualities, as you are pleased now and then to call them), +do you know, I say, that I see under all this, you still love me with +the same helpless passion; and can your vast foresight imagine I won't +use you accordingly, for these extraordinary airs you are pleased to +give yourself.' [Talk of the independence of the 'New Woman.' Who +could have been more self-assertive than this eighteenth century +belle?] + +"MORE. O by all means, madame, 'tis as you should, and I expect it +whenever it is in your power. [_Aside_] Confusion! + +"LADY BETTY. My lord, you have talked to me this half-hour without +confessing pain. [_Pauses and affects to gape_.] Only remember it. + +"MORE. Hell and tortures! + +"LADY BETTY. What did you say, my lord? + +"MORE. Fire and furies! + +"LADY BETTY. Ha! ha! he's disorder'd. Now I am easy. My Lord +Foppington, have you a mind to your revenge at piquet? + +"FOP. I have always a mind to an opportunity of entertaining your +ladyship, madame. + +[LADY BETTY _coquets with_ LORD FOPPINGTON. + +"MORE. O Charles, the insolence of this woman might furnish out a +thousand devils. + +"SIR CHARLES. And your temper is enough to furnish a thousand such +women. Come away--I have business for you upon the terrace. + +"MORE. Let me but speak one word to her. + +"SIR CHARLES. Not a syllable; the tongue's a weapon you always have +the worst at. For I see you have no guard, and she carries a devilish +edge. + +"LADY BETTY. My lord, don't let anything I've said frighten you away; +for if you have the least inclination to stay and rail, you know the +old conditions; 'tis but your asking me pardon next day, and you may +give your passion any liberty you think fit. + +"MORE. Daggers and death! [What a picturesque, old-fashioned oath, is +it not? "Daggers and death!" Writers of English melodramas, please +take notice.] + +"SIR CHARLES. Is the man distracted? + +"MORE. Let me speak to her now, or I shall burst.[A] + +"SIR CHARLES. Upon condition you'll speak no more of her to me, my +lord, do as you please. + +"MORE. Pr'ythee pardon me--I know not what to do. + +"SIR CHARLES. Come along, I'll set you to work, I warrant you. Nay, +nay, none of your parting ogles--will you go? + +"MORE. Yes, and I hope for ever. + +[_Exit_ SIR CHARLES _pulling away_ LORD MORELOVE." + +[Footnote A: Here is the way in which several of our refined farcical +writers would have given it: + +MORELOVE. Let me speak to her now, or I shall burst. + +SIR CHARLES. Upon condition that you'll not burst here, in the +parlour, do as you please.] + + * * * * * + +There is about this and many other scenes the fragrance of an old +perfume, as of lavender. We take up the book after years of neglect, +and the odour, which is not that of sanctity, is still perceptible--a +potent reminder of the past. And Lady Betty Modish? She must +be--well-nigh on to two hundred years old (a thousand florid pardons, +sweet madame, for bringing in your age), but she is as blooming, +saucy, and interesting as ever. + +What becomes of Betty in the comedy, the reader may ask. She goes on +her triumphant way, the same cruel enchantress, until the last act, +when she is quite ready to fall into the arms of Lord Morelove. Sir +Charles Easy, touched by the constancy and devotion of his wife, +announces that he will mend his wilful habits, and Lord Foppington, +who flattered himself that Lady Betty was madly in love with him, +accepts his dismissal with great good humour. Then we have a song +setting forth how: + + "Sabina with an angel's face + By Love ordain'd for joy, + Seems of the Siren's cruel race, + To charm and then destroy. + + "With all the arts of look and dress, + She fans the fatal fire; + Through pride, mistaken oft for grace, + She bids the swains expire. + + "The god of Love, enraged to see + The nymph defy his flame, + Pronounced his merciless decree + Against the haughty dame: + + "'Let age with double speed o'ertake her, + Let love the room of pride supply; + And when the lovers all forsake her, + A spotless virgin let her die.'" + +Next, with the sound of this horrible warning ringing in our ears, Sir +Charles steps forward to give the tag: "If then [turning to Lady Easy] +the unkindly thought of what I have been hereafter shou'd intrude upon +thy growing quiet, let this reflection teach thee to be easy: + + "Thy wrong, when greatest, most thy virtue prov'd; + And from that virtue found, I blus'd and truly lov'd." + +So ends the comedy in a blaze of morality. We almost see Sir Charles +fitting on a pair of newly-made wings, as he prepares to float away to +some better planet; but let him go, by all means. We shall remain here +and watch that fair sinner, Oldfield. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A DEAD HERO + + + "The soul, secur'd in her existence, smiles + At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. + The stars shall fade away, the sun himself + Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years; + But thou shall flourish in immortal youth, + Unhurt amidst the war of elements, + The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds." + +So doth noble Cato philosophise when, in Addison's stately tragedy, he +gazes on his sword and plans to admit the Grim Visitor whom the most +of us wish to keep without our threshold until the last fatal moment. +How those lines used to thrill the classic hearts of our ancestors; +how Barton Booth, who + + "shook the stage, and made the people stare," + +could put into this mild plea for suicide a fervour that caused Drury +Lane to ring with applause. What mattered it if the actor, as Pope +related, wore a long wig and flowered gown? Cato was none the less +himself for that, nor did Booth's elegance of delivery seem unwelcome +because his clothes pictured the dandified spirit of the eighteenth +century. + +"Cato!" The play is forgotten now, but there was magic in its name in +the palmy days of its author, gentle, kindly Joseph Addison. So potent +was that magic, such vivid impression did the fate of the grand old +Roman make on more than one mind, when thus retold in lofty verse, +that the tragedy was cited as a justification of self-destruction. + + "What Cato did, and Addison approved + Cannot be wrong." + +These lines, written on a scrap of paper by Eustace Budgell, were +found shortly after the death of that odd genius. From being an +honoured contributor to the _Spectator_, Budgell descended to the +depths of infamy, poverty, and despair, and so one day he threw +himself out of a boat under London Bridge, and the waters of the +Thames closed over him for ever. He owed his early prosperity to +Addison, his cousin, and by way of gratitude he sought to throw upon +his benefactor's memory the odium of this moist and melancholy exit +from the world. + +Their lies no odium, nevertheless, where Addison is concerned. His +own life may have been clouded towards the last by the mists of +disappointment, but to us admiring moderns he is all sunshine. Not the +fiery sunshine of summer, but the genial, dignified light of an autumn +afternoon when nature seems in most reflective mood. For there was +nothing impetuous or ardent in the composition of this good-humoured +philosopher; and while he railed so well at the petty sins and +vanities of the England in which he dwelt, the satire had naught of +venom, malice, or uncharitableness. + +Nowadays Addison and the _Spectator_ go rolling down to fame together, +an indivisible reminder--the very essence indeed--of the virtues, +peccadilloes, greatness and meanness of early eighteenth century life. +We may forget that Joe was quite a politician in his prime, we are +even loth to recall that there was ever such a play as "Cato," but so +long as the English language has power to charm, the dear old volumes +of the _Spectator_ will stand out as a delightful landmark of that +literature which forms the heritage of American and Briton alike. + +How fondly do we turn the pages of the well-read essays, with their +pictures of good Sir Roger de Coverley, Will Honeycomb, and the rest +of that happy crew. And over what portrait do we linger more lovingly +than that of the _Spectator_ himself, wherein there is many a stroke +of the pen that brings Addison in view. When he tells us, for +instance: "I threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and +would not make use of my coral until they had taken away the bells +from it," the writer is indulging in a pretty bit of humour at the +expense of his own sedate youth. + + * * * * * + +"I have passed my latter years," the philosopher goes on to say, "in +this city (London), where I am frequently seen in most public places, +though there are not above half a dozen of my select friends that know +me.... There is no place of general resort wherein I do not often make +my appearance: sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a round of +politicians at Will's,[A] and listening with great attention to the +narratives that are made in those little circular audiences; sometimes +I smoke a pipe at Child's,[B] and while I seem attentive to nothing +but the postman, overhear the conversation of every table in the room. +I appear on Sunday nights at St. James' coffee house, and sometimes +join the little committee of politics in the inner room, as one who +comes there to hear and improve. My face is likewise very well known +at the Grecian, the Cocoa Tree, and in the theatres both of Drury Lane +and the Haymarket. I have been taken for a merchant upon the Exchange +for above these ten years, and sometimes pass for a Jew in the +assembly of stockbrokers at Jonathan's. In short, wherever I see a +cluster of people, I always mix with them, though I never open my lips +but in my own club." + +[Footnote A: Will's and Child's were popular coffee-houses, as were +also the Grecian, St. James', and the Cocoa Tree.] + +[Footnote B: See footnote on page 97.] + + * * * * * + +It is easy to fancy Addison, shy but ever observant, mingling with the +people who thronged the coffee-houses and there settled the affairs +of the nation, discussed their neighbours, and sipped their coffee +or stronger drink, as the case might be. He must have laughed in his +sleeve many a time as he heard the know-it-alls predicting that the +British nation was on the brink of perdition or announcing, in the +most confidential of manners, the secret policies of his Christian +Majesty, Louis XIV. of France. Probably Joe agreed with Steele, +who, in speaking of a certain coffee-house, observed that in it men +differed rather in the time of day wherein they made a figure, than in +any real greatness above one another. + +[Illustration: JOSEPH ADDISON By SIR GODFREY KNELLER] + +"I, who am at the coffee-house at six in the morning," Dick writes +on,[A] "know that my friend Beaver the haberdasher has a levee of +more undissembled friends and admirers than most of the courtiers +or generals of Great Britain. Every man about him has, perhaps, a +newspaper in his hand; but none can pretend to guess what step will be +taken in any one court of Europe, till Mr. Beaver has thrown down his +pipe, and declares what measures the allies must enter into upon this +new posture of affairs. Our coffee-house is near one of the inns of +court, and Beaver has the audience and admiration of his neighbours +from six till within a quarter of eight, at which time he is +interrupted by the students of the house; some of whom are ready +dressed for Westminster at eight in a morning, with faces as busy as +if they were retained in every cause there; and others come in their +night gowns to saunter away their time, as if they never designed to +go thither. + +[Footnote A: _Spectator_, No. 49.] + +"I do not know that I meet in any of my walks, objects which move both +my spleen and laughter so effectually as those young fellows at the +Greecian, Squire's, Searle's, and all other coffee-houses adjacent +to the law, who rise early for no other purpose but to publish their +laziness. One would think these young virtuosos take a gay cap and +slippers, with a scarf and party-coloured gown, to be ensigns of +dignity; for the vain things approach each other with an air which +shews they regard one another for their vestments. I have observed +that the superiority among these proceeds from an opinion of gallantry +and fashion. The gentleman in the strawberry sash, who presides so +much over the rest, has, it seems, subscribed to every opera this +last winter, and is supposed to receive favours from one of the +actresses."[A] + +[Footnote A: Come, says my Friend, let us step into this Coffee House +here; as you are a Stranger in the Town, it will afford you some +Diversion. Accordingly in we went, where a parcel of Muddling +Muckworms were as busy as so many Rats in an old Cheese Loft; some +Going, some Coming, some Scribling, some Talking, some Drinking, some +Smoaking, others Jangling: and the whole Room stinking of Tobacco, +like a Dutch Scoot or a Boatswain's Cabbin. The Walls being hung with +Gilt Frames, as a Farriers shop with Horse shoes; which contain'd +abundance of Rarities viz. Nectar and Ambrosia, May Dew, Golden +Elixirs, Popular Pills, Liquid Snuff, Beautifying Waters, Dentifrisis +Drops, Lozenges, all as infallible as the Pope, + + Where every one above the rest + Deservedly has gain'd the Name of Best + +(as the famous Saffold has it).--WARD.] + +As the day lengthens the scene changes. The gentleman with the +strawberry sash and uncertain morals and his servile subjects +disappear, giving place "to men who have business or good sense in +their faces, and come to the coffee-house either to transact affairs +or enjoy conversation. The persons to whose behaviour and discourse I +have most regard, are such as are between these two sorts of men; +such as have not spirits too active to be happy and well pleased in a +private condition, not complexions too warm to make them neglect the +duties and relations of life. Of this sort of men consist the worthier +part of mankind; of these are all good fathers, generous brothers, +sincere friends, and faithful subjects. Their entertainments are +derived rather from reason than imagination; which is the cause that +there is no impatience or instability in their speech or action. You +see in their countenances they are at home, and in quiet possession of +the present instant as it passes, without desiring to quicken it by +gratifying any passion or prosecuting any new design. These are the +men formed for society, and those little communities which we express +by the word neighbourhood." + +Thus moved the panorama of the coffee-house. Perhaps nothing +contributed more importantly to the gossip of the latter than did the +mention of quiet Addison himself after the night in April, 1713, which +witnessed the triumph of "Cato." The essayist had always possessed, +like many other literary men, a secret longing to be the author of a +prosperous tragedy, and in his earlier days made bold to submit a play +to the inspection of Dryden. The poet read it with polite interest, +and, on returning the manuscript to the author, expressed therefor his +profound esteem, with many apologetic _et ceteras_, and only regretted +that, in his humble opinion, the piece, if placed upon the stage, +"would not meet with its deserved success." In other words, Dryden +saw that Addison was sadly wanting in dramatic instinct, but was too +forbearing to say this in plain, set terms. As for the young man, +he must have felt much after the fashion of the aspiring writer who +receives an article back from an unappreciative magazine with a +printed slip warning him that "the rejection of manuscript does not +imply lack of merit," &c. &c., the whole thing being intended as a +moral cushion to break the suddenly descending spirits of the sender. + +Years later the great man was favoured with another cushion of this +sort by no less a person than his friend Alexander Pope, whose +august criticism he asked in behalf of "Cato." The major part of the +play--all of it, in fact, excepting the last act--had been written +when Addison first began to fall under the passionate influence of +French tragedy, with its tiresome regularity of form and attempted +imitation of the classic drama.[A] And a powerful influence it was +in the days of good Queen Anne, so powerful, verily, that it almost +emasculated the art of play-writing, and for a time well nigh bereft +the stage of originality of thought or freedom of expression. Form, +form, that was the cry still ringing in the ears of the author when he +put the finishing touches to a production which was to be famous for +the nonce, and then go down in the dark waters of oblivion with the +wreck of many like it. + +[Footnote A: Just as the school of Racine and Boileau set its face +against the extravagances of the romantic coteries, so Addison and his +English followers, adopting the principles of the French classicists, +applied them to the reformation of the English theatre. Hence arose +a great revival of respect for the political doctrines of Aristotle, +regard for the unities of time and place, attention to the proprieties +of sentiment and diction--in a word, for all those characteristics +of style afterwards summed up in the phrase "correctness."--W.J. +COURTHOPE'S "Addison."] + +"When Mr. Addison," related Pope, "had finished his 'Cato,' he brought +it to me, desired to have my sincere opinion of it, and left it with +me for three or four days. I gave him my opinion of it sincerely, +which was, 'that I thought he had better not act it, and that he would +get reputation enough by only printing it.' This I said as thinking +the lines well written, but the piece was not theatrical enough. Some +time after Mr. Addison said 'that his own opinion was the same with +mine, but that some particular friends of his, whom he could not +disoblige, insisted on its being acted,'" + +These particular friends who were not to be disobliged seem to have +been shining lights of the Whig party. It was feared that the Tories +were conspiring to reinstate the male line of Stuart the moment Queen +Anne should take herself to another world, and the friends of the +Hanoverian succession grew sorely anxious. They were filled with +delight, therefore, on hearing that Addison had, peacefully slumbering +in his desk, a drama which, as Maynwaring explained, was written not +for the love scenes, "but to support the old Roman and English public +spirit."[A] Here was a chance to inspire the people with a passion for +liberty; the story of Cato, served up in all the elegance of French +style, should point a moral against the claims of the Pretender, and +pure politics might thus be taught from the rostrum of a theatre! + +[Footnote A: Those who _affected_ to think liberty in danger, and had +_affected_ likewise to think that a stage play might preserve it.--DR. +JOHNSON.] + +So it came about that one fine day the company at Drury Lane began +the rehearsal of "Cato," under circumstances, however, which hardly +pointed to a successful production. There appears to have been some +difficulty in the assignment of parts, and it is easy to imagine +that at first the players exercised their prerogative of growling--a +prerogative not calculated to dispel the doubts fast assailing Addison +as to the outcome of the performance. Nance Oldfield made no fuss +at playing Marcia, Cato's daughter, for she was ever disposed to be +tractable; but when it came to casting the noble Roman himself the +trouble began. The story runs that the part was first offered +to Cibber, and that he sensibly refused it. Colley might make a +delightful fop, but the playing of dandies could hardly lead one up +very gracefully to the handling of Cato. + +Next came the suggestion that John Mills[A] should try the character, +but fortunately he displayed no more enthusiasm for it than did +Cibber. Cato was too old a person for him to act, he said, and so +declined to have anything to do with the elderly hero. Afterwards he +was cast for the less important rôle of Sempronius, which proved in +every way a better disposition of affairs, for Mills was a plodder +rather than a genius. He belonged to the order of actors to whom, +in the present day, we apply the charitable word of painstaking, an +adjective which shows very plainly the nature of the man, while it +likewise allows the critic to escape the charge of unkindness. We all +know the painstaking player, and always cheerfully acknowledge his +virtues, but who shall blame us if, after giving him the benefit of +his earnestness, we yawn and creep out into the lobby while he holds +the stage? + +[Footnote A: Mills was considered one of the most useful actors that +ever served in a theatre, but, though invested by the patronage of +Wilks with many parts of the highest order, he had no pretensions +to quit the secondary line in which he ought to have been +placed.--BELLCHAMBERS.] + +That Mills sometimes inspired this feeling of boredom may be imagined +from the way in which his performance of Macbeth was once received. To +those who remembered how magnificently Betterton had played the part, +the chill formalism of the new aspirant must have seemed presumptuous, +and one night the contrast proved too much for a country gentleman +possessed of more honesty than politeness. After watching the progress +of the tragedy with growing indignation his feelings became unbearable +at a certain point in the fourth act, where George Powell came on +as Lennox. "For God's sake, George," shouted the squire, "give us a +speech and let me go home!"[A] + +[Footnote A: "I recollect," says Bellchambers, "an incident of the +same sort occurring at Bristol, where a very indifferent actor +declaimed so long and to such little purpose that an honest farmer, +who sat in the pit, started up with evident signs of disgust, and +waving his hand, to motion the speaker off, cried out, 'Tak 'un away, +tak 'un away, and let's have another.'"] + +Thus every one must have given a sigh of relief when industrious John +objected to the age of Cato; every one, at least, excepting Wilks, who +had taken this actor under his theatrical wing and sought to elevate +him above one far greater than either of them--Barton Booth. The fact +was that Wilks hid within his breast the troublesome, green-eyed +monster of jealousy; he feared the rising genius of Booth, and, now +that he was part manager of Drury Lane, probably took pains to keep +the rival as much as possible in the background. Unfortunately for +this plan of annihilation the screen provided in the commonplace +person of Mills proved entirely too flimsy to hide the coming man. +Barton Booth was in many ways an ideal actor, in that he was blessed +with the poetic imagination and scholarship to understand his rôles +and the tragic power to play them. He had, furthermore, a voice of +marvellous resonance, an aristocratic bearing and a handsome face and +figure which were sure to attract attention, whether he appeared +upon the stage or amid the more genial confines of the Bedford +coffee-house. + +It was to Booth, therefore, that Cato was finally assigned, the other +masculine parts being handed over to Cibber, Mills, Wilks, Powell, +Ryan, Bowman, and Keen. The latter was a popular actor of majestic +mould who used to play the King in "Hamlet" (a rôle too often left +to the mercies of third-rate mouthers) in a fashion which would +have justified the loyal and historic gentleman who preferred that +character to all others in the play. As already mentioned, Marcia was +to be acted by Oldfield, and to Mistress Porter, who usually revelled +in the delineation of high and mighty passions, was given gentle, +tearful Lucia, daughter to Lucius (Keen). + +The rehearsals now went on apace, but evidently without much show of +enthusiasm. Addison assisted, probably dispirited and nervous but +outwardly unruffled, for he always presented a well-starched front to +the watching-world. Honest Dick Steele looked on, and in that frank, +ingenuous way he told his friends, with perhaps a suspicious flush +on his winsome face and a swimming gleam in his eyes, that he was +preparing to pack the theatre on the opening night in the interests of +worried Joe. Poor, good-hearted Dick! Then there was Parson Swift, who +sat behind the scenes with mild interest on his face and a sneer in +that ugly, gnarled heart of his. "We stood on the stage," he writes to +Stella, "and it was foolish enough to see the actors prompting every +moment, and the poet directing them, and the drab that acts Cato's +daughter (Mrs. Oldfield) out in the midst of a passionate part, and +then calling out 'What's next?'" + +Lastly came the great Mr. Pope, with that poor, deformed body and +brilliant mind. He was not content merely to be a "looker on in +Vienna," or in Utica; he pottered around unceasingly, hobnobbed with +Oldfield (who now began to take the liveliest interest in the play), +and suggested several alterations in the text. Once Nance ventured to +criticise a speech of Portius; the amiable Addison, unlike the fashion +of some other amiable authors, heard her objections with approval, +and soon Mr. Pope was again called into consultation. There was more +hobnobbing, a change of diction, and the rehearsals continued. Then, +to cap the climax of poetic condescension, little Alexander honoured +"Cato" with a flowing prologue wherein he set forth, archaically +enough, that + + "To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, + To raise the genius, and to mend the heart, + To make mankind in conscious virtue bold, + Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold: + For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage, + Commanding tears to stream through every age; + Tyrants no more their savage nature kept, + And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept." + +At last came the eventful evening of April 13, when "Cato" saw the +light. The theatre was packed, just as Steele promised that it should +be, yet the audience would have been large had Dick never existed. +There were no press agents to "boom" matters, but as it became +known that the Whigs stood sponsors for the tragedy there was a +corresponding desire to be in either at its triumph or its death. The +result has passed into history. The characters were, for the most +part, finely acted, and the play was admired for its lofty sentiments +and elegance of expression, while the Tories, _mirabile dictu_, vied +with their enemies in enthusiastic tokens of approval. The Whigs went +to the theatre expecting to appropriate all of Mr. Addison's illusions +to the sacred cause of liberty, and what must have been their horror +on finding that the Tories, refusing to be discomfited by any of those +illusions, applauded as violently as did the friends of Hanover? + +Pope has left us a description of this first night, in a letter to Sir +William Trumbull. "Cato," he writes, "was not so much the wonder of +Rome in his days, as he is of Britain in ours; and though all the +foolish industry possible has been used to make it thought a party +play, yet what the author once said of another may the most properly +in the world be applied to him on this occasion: + + "'Envy itself is dumb, in wonder lost, + And factions strive who shall applaud him most.'[A] + +[Footnote A: From Addison's poem of "The Campaign," wherein the author +sings of the greatness of Marlborough.] + +"The numerous and violent claps of the Whig party on the one side of +the theatre, were echoed by the Tories on the other; while the +author sweated behind the scenes with concern to find their applause +proceeding more from the hand than the head. This was the case too of +the prologue writer, who was clapped into a staunch Whig at almost +every two lines. I believe you have heard that after all the applause +of the opposite faction, my lord Bolingbroke sent for Booth, who +played Cato, into the box between one of the acts, and presented +him with fifty guineas, in acknowledgement (as he expressed it) +for defending the cause of liberty so well against a Perpetual +Dictator.[A] The Whigs are unwilling to be distanced this way, and +therefore design a present to the same Cato very speedily; in the +meantime they are getting ready as good a sentence as the former on +their side: so betwixt them it is probable that Cato (as Dr. Garth +expressed it) may have something to live upon after he dies." + +[Footnote A: It is suggested by Macaulay that Lord Bolingbroke +hinted at "the attempt which Marlborough had made to convert the +Captain-Generalship into a patent office, to be held by himself +for life." The anecdote of Pope gives us an amusing example of the +stealing of Whig thunder by the clever Tories.] + +So important a rôle did politics play in this first performance of +"Cato" that to many in the house the merits of the actors must have +passed unrecognised. And yet those merits were striking. Who could +have made a lovlier Marcia than did Nance; and how thoroughly she +must have justified the passion of that most virtuous of princes, the +sententious Juba. The character was not worthy of her genius, but +that did not prevent this true artist from giving to it all manner of +dignity and beauty. Who could help pitying her lover when Marcia first +repelled his amorous advances: + + "I should be griev'd, young Prince, to think my presence + Unbent your thoughts, and slacken'd 'em to arms, + While, warm with slaughter, our victorious foe + Threatens aloud, and calls you to the field." + +And when Marcia, having sent away the youth, explained: + + "His air, his voice, his looks, and honest soul + Speak all so movingly in his behalf, + I dare not trust myself to hear him talk," + +the apology came with such delicious grace and plaintiveness that the +house forgot her coldness in sorrow for her woes. + +And Barton Booth? His superb acting of Cato raised him to such an airy +pinnacle of fame that he soon became one of the managers of Drury +Lane. The other players were evidently all more or less effective, +barring Cibber, whose Syphax (the Numidian warrior who seeks the +downfall of Cato), must have made the judicious grieve. Indeed we can +easily believe that he used so many grotesque motions and spoke his +lines with such a cracked voice as to win only ridicule and "a loud +laugh of contempt." + +Lord Bolingbroke's gift of fifty guineas had a disturbing effect not +only on the Whigs but on Manager Dogget as well. That worthy feared +the success of "Cato" would cause Booth to claim a share in the +direction of Drury Lane, as he did, of course, in a very short time. +In the hopes of shutting off all pretensions to this honour by a +paltry expedient Dogget thought that Cibber, Wilks and himself, as +joint managers, could relieve themselves of every obligation by +duplicating the generosity of the Tory statesman. + +"He insinuated to us (for he was a staunch Whig)" relates Colley, +"that this present of fifty guineas was a sort of Tory triumph which +they had no pretence to; and that for his part he could not bear that +so redoubted a champion for liberty as Cato should be bought off to +the cause of a contrary party. He therefore, in the seeming zeal of +his heart, proposed that the managers themselves should make the +same present to Booth which had been made him from the boxes the day +before. This, he said, would recommend the equality and liberal spirit +of our management to the town, and might be a means to secure Booth +more firmly in our interest, it never having been known that the skill +of the best actor had received so round a reward or gratuity in one +day before. + +"Wilks, who wanted nothing but abilities to be reduc'd to tell him +that it was my opinion that Booth would never be made easy by +anything we could do for him, 'till he had a share in the profits +and management; and that, as he did not want friends to assist him, +whatever his merit might be before, every one would think since his +acting of Cato, he had now enough to back his pretentions to it." + +In the end Cibber's objections were overruled, "and the same night +Booth had the fifty guineas, which he receiv'd with a thankfulness +that made Wilks and Dogget perfectly easy, insomuch that they seem'd +for some time to triumph in their conduct, and often endeavour'd to +laugh my jealousy out of countenance. But in the following winter the +game happened to take a different turn; and then, if it had been a +laughing matter," says Colley, "I had as strong an occasion to smile +at their former security."[A] + +[Footnote A: After Booth was admitted into the management Dogget +retired in disgust from Drury Lane, and brought suit against his +former associates. He was decreed the sum of £600 for his share in the +patent, with allowances for interest. "I desir'd," wrote Cibber, "we +might all enter into an immediate treaty with Booth, upon the terms of +his admission. Dogget still sullenly reply'd, that he had no occasion +to enter into any treaty. Wilks then, to soften him, propos'd that, if +I liked it, Dogget might undertake it himself. I agreed. No! he would +not be concern'd in it. I then offer'd the same trust to Wilks, +if Dogget approv'd of it. Wilks said he was not good at making of +bargains, but if I was willing, he would rather leave it to me. Dogget +at this rose up and said, we might both do as we pleas'd, but that +nothing but the law should make him part with his property--and so +went out of the room."] + +"So much for one result of 'Cato's' first performance. The play had a +run of thirty-five nights and as cunning as Dogget, was so charm'd +with the proposal that he long'd that moment to make Booth the present +with his own hands; and though he knew he had no right to do it +without my consent, had no patience to ask it; upon which I turned to +Dogget with a cold smile [what a freezing, polar expression Cibber +could put on when he desired] and told him, that if Booth could be +purchas'd at so cheap a rate, it would be one of the best proofs of +his economy we had ever been beholden to: I therefore desired we might +have a little patience; that our doing it too hastily might be only +making sure of an occasion to throw the fifty guineas away; for if we +should be obliged to do better for him, we could never expect that +Booth would think himself bound in honour to refund them." + +From this little conversation we see that art is not always the one +beacon light of the player or the manager. Cibber argued with his +natural shrewdness, but Wilks would not be convinced, and began, "with +his usual freedom of speech," to treat the suggestion "as a pitiful +evasion of their intended generosity." + +"But Dogget, who was not so wide of my meaning, clapping his hand upon +mine, said, with an air of security, O! don't trouble yourself! there +must be two words to that bargain; let me alone to manage that matter. +Wilks, upon this dark discourse, grew uneasy, as if there were some +secret between us that he was to be left out of. Therefore, to avoid +the shock of his intemperance, I was the town crowded to the theatre. +Even the good Queen, who must have been more or less bored at the fuss +bestowed upon it, actually suggested that Mr. Addison should dedicate +the tragedy to her Royal self. To inscribe a work to a sovereign means +little or nothing in these days of republicanism, real or assumed, +but Anne's request came as a great compliment It was a compliment, +however, which had to be dispensed with, for Addison had already +proposed to dedicate 'Cato' to the Duchess of Marlborough, and he +harboured no wish to mortify the aggressive Sarah (now out of favour +with the Queen) by acting upon the hint of her one-time friend and +mistress. So the author diplomatically ignored both horns of the +dilemma, or, in other words, determined to consecrate his tragedy +neither to Queen nor Duchess." + +When June was well nigh ended the Drury Lane players transplanted +"Cato" to the scholarly environment of Oxford, where, as friend Cibber +tells us, "a great deal of that false, flashy wit and forc'd humour," +which had been the delight of London, was rated at "its bare +intrinsick value." The play was admirably suited to the temper of a +university audience, and its success proved so great, its sentiment so +uplifted, that Dr. Sandridge, Dean of Carlisle, wrote to Barton Booth +expressing his wish that "all discourses from the pulpit were as +instructive and edifying, as pathetic and affecting," as those +provided by Mr. Addison. + +The "Apology" gives us an interesting account of the favour accorded +to "Cato," above all other modern plays, by the dwellers in thoughtful +Oxford. + +"The only distinguished merit allow'd to any modern writer was to the +author of 'Cato,' which play being the flower of a plant raised in +that learned garden (for there Mr. Addison had his education), what +favour may we not suppose was due to him from an audience of brethren, +who from that local relation to him might naturally have a warmer +pleasure in their benevolence to his fame? But not to give more weight +to this imaginary circumstance than it may bear, the fact was, that on +our first day of acting it, our house was in a manner invested, and +entrance demanded by twelve a clock at noon, and before one it was not +wide enough for many who came too late for places. The same crowds +continued for three days together (an uncommon curiosity in that +place) and the death of Cato triumphed over the injuries of Caesar +everywhere. To conclude, our reception at Oxford, whatever our merit +might be, exceeded our expectation." + +The ladies and gentlemen of Drury Lane posted away from Oxford in a +blaze of glory. They had actually behaved themselves, these despised +mummers, and their contribution towards the repairing of a church was +almost sufficient to bring them within the pale of holiness. "At our +taking leave," writes Colley, jubilantly, "we had the thanks of the +vice-Chancellor for the decency and order observ'd by our whole +society, an honour which had not always been paid upon the same +occasions; for at the act in King William's time I remember some +pranks of a different nature had been complain'd of. Our receipts had +not only enabled us (as I have observ'd) to double the pay of every +actor, but to afford out of them towards the repair of St. Mary's +Church the contribution of fifty pounds. Besides which, each of the +three managers had to his respective share, clear of all charges, one +hundred and fifty more for his one and twenty days' labour, which +being added to his thirteen hundred and fifty shared in the winter +preceding, amounted in the whole to fifteen hundred, the greatest sum +ever known to have been shared in one year to that time. And to the +honour of our auditors here and elsewhere be it spoken, all this was +rais'd without the aid of those barbarous entertainments with which, +some few years after (upon the re-establishment of two contending +companies) we were forc'd to disgrace the stage to support it" + +The success of "Cato" proved as brilliant in a literary as in a +dramatic sense. The play was translated into several languages, not +forgetting the Latin, and even Voltaire was pleased, in after years, +to come down from his critical throne and honour Mr. Addison's verses +with his praise.[A] "The first English writer," he said, "who composed +a regular tragedy and infused a spirit of elegance through every part +of it was the illustrious Mr. Addison." Poor Shakespeare! + +[Footnote A: One sees in Voltaire (who observed that "Hamlet" "appears +the work of a drunken savage") the old-fashioned tendency to belittle +Shakespeare. This tendency has one of its most amusing reflections in +a criticism by Hume, who said of the great poet that "a reasonable +propriety of thought he cannot for any time uphold."] + +Smile as we may over that frigid elegance, it seemed none the less +impressive in the days of auld lang syne, and even yet we hear echoes +of the play in a round of familiar quotations. + + "The woman who deliberates is lost;" + +And + + "'Tis not in mortals to command success, + But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it;" + +And + + "Curse on his virtues, they've undone his country." + +still fall lightly on our ear. But the tragedy is forgotten, and why +seek to resurrect those once-beloved characters? Cato, Marcia, Juba, +and the rest--figures of classic marble rather than of flesh and +blood--have all gone to that bourne whence no stage travellers return. +They lie buried 'mid all the pomp of mouldering books, and there let +them peacefully decay. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +IN TRAGIC PATHS + + +The average comedian will whisper, if you are fortunate enough to get +him in confidential mood, that he was really designed by nature to +tread the stately walks of tragedy; that had not cruel fate intervened +he would now be enthralling the town with his Hamlet, Macbeth, or +Othello, and that even yet he has not lost all hope of adorning the +kingdom of Melpomene. But he is not to be believed, in at least +ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, and while we listen politely to +his story of blasted ambition our hearts are exceeding thankful that +the chance he looked for never came. + +Nance Oldfield brilliantly reversed this order of things. Although she +shone in comedy with the brighter light, she could play serious rôles +with majesty and power, and feel, or pretend to feel, a trifle bored +in so doing. "I hate to have a page dragging my train about," she used +to cry, with a pout of the pretty mouth; "why don't they give Porter +those parts? She can put on a better tragedy face than I can." Yet +whatever might be the undoubted capabilities of Porter for assuming +the tragic mask, audience and manager sometimes insisted that Nance +should banish all the sunlight and becloud her features with the +sorrows of a high-strung heroine. + +One of these heroines was Andromache, the title personage of "The +Distressed Mother," an adaptation by Ambrose Philips of Racine's +"Andromaque." This play seems heavy enough if we bother to read it +now, but it had a thousand charms for theatre-goers in the days when +Mr. Philips frequented Button's coffee-house and there hung up a cane +which he threatened to use upon the body of the great Mr. Pope.[A] +Addison, whom tradition credits with writing the entertaining +epilogue, took all manner of interest in the tragedy, and the +_Spectator_ treated it to an advance notice which we degenerates might +term an unblushing "boom." + +[Footnote A: Pope had ventured to sneer at Philips' "Pastorals."] + +"The players, who know I am very much their friend," says the +_Spectator_[A] "take all opportunities to express a gratitude to me +for being so. They could not have a better occasion of obliging me, +than one which they lately took hold of. They desired my friend Will +Honeycomb to bring me the reading of a new tragedy; it is called 'The +Distressed Mother.' I must confess, though some days are passed since +I enjoyed that entertainment, the passions of the several characters +dwell strongly upon my imagination; and I congratulate the age, that +they are at last to see truth and human life represented in the +incidents which concern heroes and heroines. The style of the play +is such as becomes those of the first education, and the sentiments +worthy those of the highest figure. It was a most exquisite pleasure +to me, to observe real tears drop from the eyes of those who had long +made it their profession to dissemble affliction; and the player, who +read, frequently threw down the book, until he had given vent to +the humanity which rose in him at some irresistible touches of the +imagined sorrow." + +[Footnote A: _Spectator_, No. 290, February 1, 1711-12. This essay has +been credited to Steele.] + +This picture of woe would hardly suit the theories of those +hard-hearted players who believe that the true artist is never +"carried away," or affected by the pathos of his part. Surely, the +scene is ridiculous rather than imposing, and one is tempted to +suggest, albeit with bated breath, that the _Spectator_ was indulging +in a bit of good-natured exaggeration. Exaggeration did we say? The +modern newspaper writer, who is always glad, when off duty, to call +things by their plain names, would brand the notice of the "Distressed +Mother" as a bare-faced puff. And who could quarrel with his +scepticism? Actors are not in the habit of weeping over the reading of +a play; they have little time for such briny luxury. + +Yet in this very number of the _Spectator_ we have George Powell, who +was cast for Orestes in Mr. Philips' tragedy, writing that the grief +which he is required to portray will seem almost real enough to choke +his utterance. Here is what the hypocrite says: + +"Mr. SPECTATOR,--I am appointed to act a part in the new tragedy +called 'The Distressed Mother.' It is the celebrated grief of Orestes +which I am to personate; but I shall not act it as I ought, for I +shall feel it too intimately to be able to utter it. I was last night +repeating a paragraph to myself, which I took to be an expression +of rage, and in the middle of the sentence there was a stroke of +self-pity which quite unmanned me. Be pleased, Sir, to print this +letter, that when I am oppressed in this manner at such an interval, a +certain part of the audience may not think I am out; and I hope with +this allowance, to do it with satisfaction.--I am, Sir, your most +humble servant, GEORGE POWELL." + +Poor dashing, dissipated, brandy-bibbing George! Perhaps you had as +keen an eye to the value of advertising as have certain players who +never heard your name.[A] + +[Footnote A: The original cast of the "Distressed Mother" included +Booth (Pyrrhus), Powell (Orestes), Mills (Pylades), Mrs. Oldfield +(Andromache), and Mrs. Porter (Hermione).] + +The production of the "Distressed Mother" (March, 1712), was +accompanied by an exciting popular demonstration which must for the +nonce have made Powell quite forget those lines which gave him such +exquisite sorrow. It all came from the jealousy of Mrs. Rogers, she of +more virtue on the stage than off, and who always cherished, with the +assistance of kind friends, a very sincere belief that her powers far +exceeded those of Oldfield.[A] + +[Footnote A: The rivalry between Rogers and Oldfield once reached such +a pass that Wilks sought to end it, and stop the complaints of the +former's admirers, by a severe expedient. "Mr. Wilks," says Victor, +"soon reduced this clamor to demonstration, by an experiment of Mrs. +Oldfield and Mrs. Rogers playing the same part, that of Lady Lurewell +in the 'Trip to the Jubilee;' but though obstinacy seldom meets +conviction, yet from this equitable trial the tumults in the house +were soon quelled (by public authority) greatly to the honour of Mr. +Wilks. I am, from my own knowledge thoroughly convinced that Mr. +Wilks had no other regard for Mrs. Oldfield but what arose from the +excellency of her performances. Mrs. Roger's conduct might be censured +by some for the earnestness of her passion towards Mr. Wilks, but +in the polite world the fair sex has always been privileged from +scandal."] + +So when Nance was cast for the distraught Andromache there was +trouble. Rogers demanded the part, and on being refused set about to +make things as unpleasant as possible for her detested rival. Friends +of the disappointed actress packed Drury Lane when the "Distressed +Mother" was performed, and the appearance of Oldfield was made the +signal for a riot. Royal messengers and guards were sent to put an end +to the disorder, but the play had to be stopped for that night. + +Colley, who had ever an eye to the pounds, shillings and pence, was +disgusted at what he chose to call an exhibition of low malevolence. +"We have been forced," he says, "to dismiss an audience of a hundred +and fifty pounds, from a disturbance spirited up by obscure people, +who never gave any better reason for it, than that it was their fancy +to support the idle complaint of one rival actress against another, in +their several pretentious to the chief part in a new tragedy. But as +this tumult seem'd only to be the Wantonness of _English_ Liberty, I +shall not presume to lay any further censure upon it." + +Finally the combined charms of Oldfield and the "Distressed Mother" +triumphed, and young beaux who had helped to swell the riot were +glad to come back meekly to Drury Lane and extol the attractions of +Andromache. In the play itself Nance must have been all that the +troublous part suggested, but it was when she tripped on gaily and +gave the humorous epilogue that the house found her most delightful. +She, who could reign so imperially in tragedy, had glided back to her +better-loved kingdom of comedy, and what cared her captivated hearers +if this self-same epilogue made an inharmonious ending to a serious +play. It was quite enough that Andromache, with all her sufferings +dispelled, should say melodiously: + + "I hope you'll own, that with becoming art, + I've play'd my game, and topp'd the widow's part. + My spouse, poor man, could not live out the play, + But dy'd commodiously on wedding-day,[A] + While I his relict, made at one bold fling, + Myself a princess, and young Sty a King. + You, ladies, who protract a lover's pain, + And hear your servants sigh whole years in vain; + Which of you all would not on marriage venture, + Might she so soon upon her jointure enter?" + +[Footnote A: This is a coy reference to Pyrrhus, who was murdered +while his marriage to Hector's widow was being celebrated with royal +pomp. As he fell, it will be remembered, the King placed his crown +upon the head of Andromache.] + +An epilogue leading off with these lines was hardly an appropriate +ending to a tragedy, yet are we fastidious enough in these days to +sneer at the anomaly? We have banished prologue and afterpiece as +something old-fashioned and inartistic, but never turn one solitary +eyelash when Hamlet follows up his death by rushing before the curtain +and grinning his thanks. Desdemonas who come forward, after the +smothering scene, to receive flowers, and Romeos and Juliets who rise +from the tomb that they may bow and smirk before an audience--while +we have such as these among us, let us not cast stones at the early +playgoer. + +Addison has left, in the _Spectator_, a delightful story of dear old +Sir Roger de Coverley's experience with the "Distressed Mother." Sir +Roger, it appears, confessed that he had not seen a play for twenty +years, and was very anxious to know "who this distressed mother was; +and upon hearing that she was Hector's widow, he told me that her +husband was a brave man, and that when he was a schoolboy he had read +his life at the end of the dictionary."[A] So the old gentleman, +accompanied by the _Spectator_, Captain Sentry, and a retinue of +servants, set out in state for Drury Lane, and on arriving there went +into the pit. + +[Footnote A: _Spectator_, No. 335.] + +"As soon as the house was full, and the candles lighted, my old +friend stood up, and looked about him with that pleasure which a mind +seasoned with humanity naturally feels in itself, at the sight of a +multitude of people who seem pleased with one another, and partake of +the same common entertainment. I could not but fancy to myself, as the +old man stood up in the middle of the pit, that he made a very proper +centre to a tragic audience. Upon the entering of Pyrrhus, the knight +told me, that he did not believe the king of France himself had a +better strut. I was indeed very attentive to my old friend's remarks, +because I looked upon them as a piece of natural criticism, and was +well pleased to hear him, at the conclusion of almost every scene, +telling me that he could not imagine how the play would end. One while +he appeared much concerned for Andromache; and a little while after +for Hermione; and was extremely puzzled to think what would become of +Pyrrhus. + +"When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obstinate refusal to her lovers +importunities, he whispered me in the ear, that he was sure she +would never have him; to which he added, with a more than ordinary +vehemence, 'You can't imagine, sir, what it is to have to do with a +widow.' Upon Pyrrhus's threatening afterwards to leave her, the knight +shook his head, and muttered to himself, 'Ay, do if you can.' This +part dwelt so much upon my friend's imagination, that at the close of +the third act, as I was thinking of something else, he whispered me +in my ear, 'These widows, sir, are the most perverse creatures in +the world. But pray,' says he, 'you that are a critic, is the play +according to your dramatic rules, as you call them? Should your people +in tragedy always talk to be understood? Why, there is not a single +sentence in this play that I do not know the meaning of.' + +"The fourth act very luckily began before I had time to give the old +gentleman an answer. 'Well,' says the knight, sitting down with great +satisfaction, 'I suppose we are now to see Hector's ghost,' He then +renewed his attention, and, from time to time, fell a praising the +widow. He made, indeed, a little mistake as to one of her pages, whom +at his first entering he took for Astyanax; but quickly set himself +right in that particular, though, at the same time he owned he should +have been very glad to have seen the little boy, who, says he, must +needs be a very fine child by the account that is given of him. Upon +Hermione's going off with a menace to Pyrrhus, the audience gave a +loud clap, to which Sir Roger added, 'On my word, a notable young +baggage!'" + +We can imagine Sir Roger going, a year later, to see Mrs. Oldfield +carry all before her as Jane Shore in Nicholas Rowe's play of that +name. The author had once been an ardent admirer of the glacierlike +but lovely Bracegirdle, at whose haughty shrine he long worshipped in +the hopes that the ice of her reserve might some day melt; and the +wits of the coffee-house were wont to say, not without a grain of +truth, that when the poet wrote dramas to fit Bracegirdle as the +heroine, the lovers therein always pleaded his own passion[A]. Now +that the charmer had left the stage, Rowe was forced to entrust the +title character of Jane Shore to Nance, who vowed, no doubt, she was +thoroughly bored at having to walk once again through a vale of tears. +But she made another triumph (the author himself coached her in the +part), and helped to give the production all manner of success. + +[Footnote A: As Cibber says, Mrs. Bracegirdle "inspired the best +authors to write for her, and two of them [Rowe and Congreve] when +they gave her a lover in a play, seem'd palpably to plead their +own passions, and make their private court to her in fictitious +characters."] + +It is a curious fact that the writing of the tragedy was indirectly +due to political disappointment. Rowe had set himself assiduously to +the study of Spanish with the idea of securing from Lord Halifax a +diplomatic position, and his reward for this energy was so intangible +that he soon gave up hopes of foreign travel and turned his attention +to the tribulations of Jane. In other words, the noble Halifax merely +expressed his satisfaction that Mr. Rowe could now read "Don Quixote" +in the original. + +Thus Nance played on, sometimes in comedy, and again in tragedy, when, +despite her customary objections, the pages had to drag her train +about. It was a train that swept all before it. + +The speaking of trains and pages suggests the fact that in old times +the heroes and heroines of tragedy always wore, either in peculiarity +of dress or pomp of surroundings, the badge of greatness. Nowadays a +few bars of romantic music, to usher these characters on the stage, +will suffice. But things were different then; our ancestors insisted +that the aforesaid _dramatis personnae_ should be labelled, frilled +and furbelowed. + +Addison has an interesting essay on the subject.[A] + +[Footnote A: _Spectator_, No. 42.] + +"But among all our tragic artifices," he says, "I am the most offended +at those which are made use of to inspire us with magnificent ideas of +the persons that speak. The ordinary method of making an hero, is to +clap a huge plume of feathers upon his head which rises so very high, +that there is often a greater length from his chin to the top of his +head than to the sole of his foot. One would believe that we thought +a great man and a tall man the same thing. This very much embarrasses +the actor, who is forced to hold his neck extremely stiff and steady +all the while he speaks; and notwithstanding any anxieties which he +pretends for his mistress, his country, or his friends, one may see by +his action, that his greatest care and concern is to keep the plume of +feathers from falling off his head. For my own part, when I see a man +uttering his complaints under such a mountain of feathers, I am apt +to look upon him rather as an unfortunate lunatic, than a distressed +hero. + +"As these superfluous ornaments upon the head make a great man, +a princess generally receives her grandeur from those additional +encumbrances that fall into her tail; I mean the broad sweeping train +that follows her in all her motions, and finds constant employment for +a boy who stands behind her to open and spread it to advantage. I do +not know how others are affected at this sight, but I must confess my +eyes are wholly taken up with the page's part; and, as for the queen, +I am not so attentive to any thing she speaks, as to the right +adjusting of her train, lest it should chance to trip up her heels, or +incommode her, as she walks to and fro upon the stage. It is, in my +opinion, a very odd spectacle to see a queen venting her passion in +a disordered motion, and a little boy taking care all the while that +they do not ruffle the tail of her gown. The parts that the two +persons act on the stage at the same time are very different. The +princess is afraid lest she should incur the displeasure of the king +her father, or lose the hero, her lover, whilst her attendant is only +concerned lest she should entangle her feet in her petticoat." + +In a succeeding paragraph the reader finds that a cherished +nineteenth-century custom--the representing of a vast army by the +employment of half-a-dozen ill-fed, unpainted supers--has at least the +sanction of age: "Another mechanical method of making great men, and +adding dignity to kings and queens, is to accompany them with halberts +and battle-axes. Two or three shifters of scenes, with the two +candle-snuffers, make up a complete body of guards upon the English +stage; and by the addition of a few porters dressed in red coats, can +represent above a dozen legions. I have sometimes seen a couple of +armies drawn up together upon the stage, when the poet has been +disposed to do honour to his generals. It is impossible for the +reader's imagination to multiply twenty men into such prodigious +multitudes, or to fancy that two or three hundred thousand soldiers +are fighting in a room of forty or fifty yards in compass. Incidents +of such a nature should be told, not represented." + +Addison remarks that "the tailor and painter often contribute to the +success of a tragedy more than the poet," a trite saying which holds +good now, and he ends his essay with the belief that "a good poet +will give the reader a more lively idea of an army or a battle in a +description, than if he actually saw them drawn up in squadrons and +battalions, or engaged in the confusion of a fight. Our minds should +be open to great conceptions, and inflamed with glorious sentiments +by what the actor speaks, more than by what he appears. Can all the +trappings or equipage of a king or hero give Brutus half the pomp and +majesty which he receives from a few lines in Shakespeare?" Which is +all very true, yet "the tailor and painter" will continue popular, no +doubt, until the crack of doom. + +The month of December 1714 saw the reopening of the theatre in +Lincoln's Inn Fields, under letters patent originally granted by +Charles II. to Christopher Rich, and restored by his broken-English +Majesty George I. The renewal created a dangerous rival to Drury Lane, +but it is not probable that the king worried over having planted such +a thorn in the sides of Messrs. Steele, Booth, Wilks, and Cibber[A]. +He remembered, he told Mr. Craggs, "when he had been in England +before, in King Charles his time, there had been two theatres in +London; and as the patent seemed to be a lawful grant, he saw no +reason why two playhouses might not be continued." + +[Footnote A: On the death of Queen Anne the old licence or patent of +Drury Lane lapsed, and when the new one was issued Steele was named +therein as a partner.] Several useful players left Drury Lane to go +over into Lincoln's Inn Fields,[A] chief among them being Mrs. Rogers, +who felt greatly relieved in transferring her affectations of virtue +to a house where she would no longer be overshadowed by the genius +of Oldfield. As for Nance, she was faithful to the old theatre, +and continued to be the fairest though perhaps the frailest of its +pillars, notwithstanding the personal charms of Mrs. Horton. The +latter was a strolling player recently admitted to the sacred +precincts of Drury. She had been in the habit of "ranting tragedy in +barns and country towns, and playing Cupid in a booth, at suburban +fairs. The attention of managers was directed towards her; and Booth, +after seeing her act in Southwark, engaged her for Drury Lane, where +her presence was more agreeable to the public than particularly +pleasant to dear Mrs. Oldfield."[B] + +[Footnote A: 'Tis true, they none of them had more than a negative +merit, in being only able to do us more harm by their leaving us +without notice, than they could do us good by remaining with us: For +though the best of them could not support a play, the worst of them by +their absence could maim it; as the loss of the least pin in a watch +may obstruct its motion.--CIBBER.] + +[Footnote B: Dr. Doran's "Annals of the Stage."] + +So wagged the mimic world with Nance as its most attractive figure. +Sometimes she laughed her way through a play; and again she committed +suicide for the edification of the audience, as when she appeared in +"Busiris." This was a windy tragedy by Dr. Young (he of the "Night +Thoughts"), wherein Wilks, as Memnon, also had to kill himself. +The performance was, naturally enough, far from cheerful, and no +particular inspiration could have been obtained from the presence of +Busiris himself, that semi-savage Egyptian king to whom Ovid referred: + + "'Tis said that Egypt for nine years was dry; + Nor Nile did floods, nor heaven did rain supply. + A foreigner at length informed the King + That slaughtered guests would kindly moisture bring. + The King replied, 'On thee the lot shall fall; + Be thou, my guest, the sacrifice for all.'" + +Certainly a most ungenial host. + +There were times when Oldfield could even arouse enthusiasm amid the +dullest and most unappealing surroundings. This she did, for instance, +in the stupid "Sophonisba" of James Thomson, who could write +delightful poetry about nature without being able to carry any of that +nature into the art of play-making. It was in this artificial tragedy +that the famous line occurred: "Oh Sophonisba! Sophonisba, o!" which +was afterwards parodied by "Oh! Jemmy Thomson! Jemmy Thomson, oh!" +and it was in the same ill-fated compilation that Cibber had the +distinction of being hissed off the stage. The latter, unlike +Oldfield, had a sneaking fondness for tragedy, and when "Sophonisba" +was first read in the green room he appropriated to his own use the +dignified character of Scipio. His egotism and foolishness had their +full reward. For two nights successively, as Davies tells us, "Cibber +was as much exploded as any bad actor could be. Williams, by desire of +Wilks, made himself master of the part; but he, marching slowly, in +great military distinction, from the upper part of the stage, and +wearing the same dress as Cibber, was mistaken for him, and met +with repeated hisses, joined to the music of cat-calls [notice, ye +theatre-goers of 1898, that the cat-call is not the invention of the +modern gallery god]; but, as soon as the audience were undeceived, +they converted their groans and hisses to loud and long continued +applause." Three years later, in 1733, Cibber retired from the stage. + +With Mrs. Oldfield the picture was far different. She could not make +of Thomson's tragedy a success, yet she played Sophonisba (one of the +last parts in which she was ever seen) with a grandeur of effect that +well earned the undying gratitude of the author.[A] In after years her +old admirers were wont to thrill with pleasure as they recalled the +passionate intensity she gave to that much-quoted line, + + "Not one base word of Carthage, for thy soul," + +as she stood glaring at the astonished Massinissa. + +[Footnote A: Mrs. Oldfield, in the character of Sophonisba, has +excelled what, even in the fondness of an author, I could either wish +or imagine. The grace, dignity, and happy variety of her action have +been universally applauded, and are truly admirable.--Thomson.] + +Among those who saw Sophonisba was Chetwood, whose "General History of +the Stage" gives us many a charming glimpse of dead and gone actors. +Dead and gone? Nay, rather let it be said that they still live in the +ever fresh and graphic pages of contemporary critics, and thus refute +the gentle pessimism of Mr. Henley when he asks so gracefully: + + "Where are the passions they essayed, + And where the tears they made to flow? + Where the wild humours they portrayed + For laughing worlds to see and know? + Othello's wrath and Juliet's woe? + Sir Peter's whims and Timon's gall? + And Millamant and Romeo? + Into the night go one and all." + +"I was too young," says Chetwood, "to view her first dawn on the +stage, but yet had the infinite satisfaction of her meridian lustre, a +glow of charms not to be beheld but with a trembling eye! which held +her influence till set in night." + +Of Nance's tendency to escape tragic plays the same writer tells us: +"When 'Mithridates' was revived, it was with much difficulty she was +prevail'd upon to take the part; but she perform'd it to the utmost +length of perfection, and, after that, she seem'd much better +reconcil'd to tragedy. What a majestical dignity in Cleopatra! and, +indeed, in every part that required it: Such a finish'd figure on the +stage, was never yet seen. In 'Calista, the Fair Penitent,' she was +inimitable, in the third act, with Horatio, when she tears the letter +with + + "'To atoms, thus! + Thus let me tear the vile detested falsehood, + The wicked lying evidence of shame!' + +"Her excellent clear voice of passion, with manner and action suiting, +us'd to make me shrink with awe, and seem'd to put her monitor Horatio +into a mousehole. I almost gave him up for a troublesome puppy; and +though Mr. Booth play'd the part of Lothario, I could hardly lug him +up to the importance of triumphing over such a finish'd piece of +perfection, that seemed to be too much dignified to lose her virtue." + + * * * * * + +Perhaps the reader may think that this chapter, like several others, +is (as the theatre-goer said of "Hamlet") too "deuced full of +quotation." Yet what can give a better picture of old stage life than +these quaint and often eloquent records of the past? Pray be lenient, +therefore, thou kindly critic, if the most faded books of the +theatrical library are taken down from the dusty shelf, and a few of +the neglected pages are printed once again. As these very books seem +all the better in their dingy bindings, so do the old ideas, the odd +conceits, the stories that charmed dead generations, take on a keener +zest when clothed in the formal language of other days. + +If we want to get that formal language in all its glory, let us bring +from the library a copy of some early eighteenth-century tragedy. +Shall we close our eyes and choose one at random? Well, what have we? +The "Tamerlane" of our friend Nicholas Rowe, in which is set forth the +story of the generous Emperor of Tartary, the "very glass and fashion +of all conquerors." The play is prefaced by a fulsome "Epistle +Dedicatory," addressed to the sacred person of the "Right Honourable +William, Lord Marquis of Harrington," and showing, almost +pathetically, how frequently the literary workers of Queen Anne's +"golden age" were wont to beg the influence of some powerful patron. +The dedication seems absolutely grovelling when viewed from the +present standards, but Mr. Rowe and his friends saw therein nothing +more remarkable than respectful homage to one of the world's great +men. The republic of letters was then an empty name.[A] + +[Footnote A: "Tamerlane" was brought out in 1702, with Betterton in +the title rôle.] + +The author of "Tamerlane" fears that in thus calling attention to the +play he may appear guilty of "impertinence and interruptions," and, +he adds, "I am sure it is a reason why I ought to beg your Lordship's +pardon, for troubling you with this tragedy; not but that poetry has +always been, and will still be the entertainment of all wise men, that +have any delicacy in their knowledge." Then, after wasting a little +necessary flattery on the noble marquis, he starts off into an +unblushing eulogy of King William III., whose clemency was mirrored, +supposedly, by the hero of the tragedy. "Some people [who do me a very +great honour in it] have fancy'd, that in the person of Tamerlane, I +have alluded to the greatest character of the present age. I don't +know whether I ought not to apprehend a great deal of danger from +avowing a design like that: It may be a task indeed worthy of the +greatest genius, which this or any other time has produc'd; but +therefore I ought not to stand the shock of a parallel lest it should +be seen, to my disadvantage, how far the _Hero has transcended the +poet's thoughts_"--and so on, _ad nauseam_. + +To turn the leaves of the play, after wading through the slime of the +"Epistle," is to find amusing proof of the high-flown and at times +bombastic expression which elicited such admiration from audiences of +the old _régime_. (Do not laugh at it, reader; you tolerate an equal +amount of absurdity in modern melodrama). The very first lines are +charmingly suggestive of the starched and stately past. "Hail to the +sun!" says the Prince of Tanais: + + "Hail to the sun! from whose returning light + The cheerful soldier's arms new lustre take + To deck the pomp of battle." + +Playwrights of Rowe's cult loved to hail the sun. Just why the orb +of day had to be saluted with such frequency no one seemed able to +determine, but the honour was continually bestowed, to the great +edification of the groundlings. When Young wrote "Busiris," he paid +so much attention to old Sol that Fielding burlesqued the learned +doctor's weakness through the medium of "Tom Thumb," and wrote that +"the author of 'Busiris' is extremely anxious to prevent the sun's +blushing at any indecent object; and, therefore, on all such +occasions, he addresses himself to the sun, and desires him to keep +out of the way." + +After the Prince of Tanais's homage to the sun we hear something +fulsome about the virtues of King William, alias Tamerlane: + + "No lust of rule, the common vice of Kings, + No furious zeal, inspir'd by hot-brain'd priests, + Ill hid beneath religion's specious name, + E'er drew his temp'rate courage to the field: + But to redress an injur'd people's wrongs, + To save the weak one from the strong oppressor, + Is all his end of war. And when he draws + The sword to punish, like relenting Heav'n, + He seems unwilling to deface his kind." + +A few lines later and we find one of the characters drawing a parallel +between Tamerlane, otherwise William, and Divinity: + + "Ere the mid-hour of night, from tent to tent, + Unweary'd, thro' the num'rous host he past, + Viewing with careful eyes each several quarters; + Whilst from his looks, as from Divinity, + The soldiers took presage, and cry'd, Lead on, + Great Alha, and our emperor, lead on, + To victory, and everlasting fame." + +How changeth the spirit of each age! Imagine Bronson Howard or +Augustus Thomas writing a play wherein the President of the United +States was brought into such irreverent contact with the Deity.[A] + +[Footnote A: Yet it cannot be easily forgotten that a certain +clergyman, preaching, several years ago, at the funeral of a rich +man's son, compared the poor boy to Christ. And this very ecclesiastic +probably looks upon the stage as a monument of sacrilegiousness.] + +But we need not follow the platitudes of Tamerlane and his companions, +nor weep at the sententious wickedness of Bajazet, that ungrateful +sovereign typifying Louis Quatorze, King of France, Prince of +Gentlemen, and Right Royal Hater of His Protestant Majesty William of +Orange. Heaven rest their souls! and with that pious prayer we may bid +them farewell, as + + "Into the night go one and all." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +NANCE AT HOME + + +"Home?" An actress at home? Does it not seem strange to apply the dear +old English noun, so redolent of peace, and quiet, and privacy, to +the feverish life of a mummer? We go, night after night, to see our +favourite players shining 'mid the fierce glare of the footlights, +watch them approvingly as they pass from rôle to rôle, and finally +begin to believe, like the egotists we are, that they have no +existence apart from the one we are pleased to applaud. What fools +some of us must be to think there is never a time when the paint and +powder, the tinsel and eternal artifice of the stage--yea, even our +own condescending admiration--pall on the jaded spirits of the poor +player. + +"How sparklingly is Miss Smith acting Lady Teazle to-night!" we say, +elegantly pressing our hands together in token of august favour. We +are entranced, and it follows, therefore, that the actress must be +entranced likewise. Mayhap Miss Smith does not share the same ecstacy; +perhaps, as she stands behind the screen in Joseph Surface's rooms, +Sir Peter's wife is wishing that the comedy were ended and she were +comfortably ensconced in her cosy little lodgings round the corner. +She pictures that crackling wood fire, and her old terrier basking +in the gentle heat, and the tea-urn hissing near by (or is it a cold +bottle of beer in the portable refrigerator?) and in the background +sweet good Mr. Smith, who does nothing but spend his lady's salary. +In that temple of domesticity there are no thoughts of rouge, or +paint-pots, or of Richard Brinsley Sheridan--it is merely home. Dost +thou always hurry back to so attractive a one, thou patronising +theatre-goer? + +Our Nance had a home to which she was glad enough to hurry back, like +the aforesaid Miss Smith, after the play was over at Drury Lane. There +was no husband there to await her, but a very devoted knight in the +person of Mr. Arthur Maynwaring, who, though he gave not his name nor +the ceremony of bell, book, and candle to the union, played the part +of spouse to the fair charmer. The town looked with good-natured +tolerance on the moral code, or the want thereof, of the frail one, +just as other towns, in later days, have looked with equal benevolence +upon the peccadillos of some petted favourite. The times were not of +the straightlaced order and no one expected from an actress wonders +of chastity or conventionality. Are we ourselves exacting where the +Thespian is concerned? + +[Illustration: ANNE OLDFIELD + +By JONATHAN RICHARDSON] + + Fashion'd alike by Nature and by Art + To please, engage, and interest ev'ry heart. + In public life, by all who saw, approv'd; + In private life, by all who knew her, lov'd. + +"Even her amours," says Chetwood in treating of Mistress Oldfield, +"seemed to lose that glare which appears round the persons of the +failing fair; neither was it ever known that she troubled the repose +of any lady's lawful claim; and was far more constant than millions in +the conjugal noose." Being thus acquitted of predatory designs +upon the peace of English wives, and having the further virtue of +constancy, a host of Londoners, men and women, high and low alike, +gazed with charitable eyes upon Nance's private life. And she, dear +girl, sinned on joyously. + +Mr. Maynwaring, who helped Oldfield to break the spirit of one +commandment, was a brilliant figure in the reign of Queen Anne, +albeit, like other brilliant figures of that period, he has passed +into the darkness of oblivion. A clever dabbler in literature, an +honest politician--a politician with scruples was as rare in those +days as he is now--and a man of honour who could drink as much as his +friends, the volatile Arthur was, perhaps, best known as the most +attractive talker of the famous Kit-Cat Club. The Kit-Cat Club! What +a wealth of anecdote doth its name conjure up to the student of the +past! 'Twas in this famous organisation that noblemen and wits met on +common ground, drank many a toast to the House of Hanover or to some +reigning belle of London town, and exercised a patronising censorship +over the world of letters. They were "the patriots that saved Briton," +says Horace Walpole, in referring to their anti-Jacobitism, and yet +the most of them are forgotten. + +If tradition is to be believed (and what siren is more comfortable to +hearken unto than tradition?) these self-same patriots took their name +of "Kit-Cats" from prosaic mutton pies. 'Twould be horrible to think +on this gastronomic derivation of the title were we not to remember, +quite fortunately, that geese saved classic Rome. Why, therefore, +should not the preservers of perfidious Albion suggest the aroma of a +lamb pasty? + +It seems that the Club had its first headquarters in Shire Lane, near +Temple Bar, at the establishment of Christopher Cat, a pastrycook +who helped to enliven the inner man by delicious meat pies dubbed +"Kit-Cats." Hence the name of that notable coterie of Whigs which +included Addison and Dick Steele, Congreve and His Grace of +Devonshire.[A] + +[Footnote A: Our modern celebrated clubs are founded upon eating and +drinking, which are points wherein most men agree, and in which the +learned and illiterate, the dull and the airy, the philosopher and the +buffoon, can all of them bear a part. The Kit-Cat itself is said to +have taken its original from a mutton pie. The Beef-Steak and October +clubs are neither of them averse to eating and drinking, if we may +form a judgment of them from their respective titles.--ADDISON in the +_Spectator_.] + +Maynwaring came of good English stock, and in early life showed the +results of his relationship to the aristocratic house of Cholmondeley +by supporting the lost cause of James II. So fervent an admirer was he +of that apology for royalty that he took up the pen, if not the sword, +in his behalf, and steeped the mightier weapon with satirical ink when +he wrote a pamphlet entitled "The King of Hearts." Rumour paid to +the young author an unintentional compliment by insisting that the +brochure came from the great Mr. Dryden, but that genius denied the +soft impeachment while gracefully praising the unknown writer. + +This pursuit of Jacobitism was varied by the study of law--a study +"sometimes relieved with a temporary application to music and +poetry"--and when the disconsolate Arthur had lost his father, and +thereby gained 800 pounds a year, he drowned his sorrows by an almost +exclusive devotion to "society and pleasantry." We are told[A] that on +the ratification of the Peace of Ryswick he went to Paris, where +he was exceedingly well received in consequence of the numerous +introductory letters which had been furnished him from various +quarters. He there contracted an intimacy with Boileau,-- + + "Whose rash envy would allow + No strain that shamed his country's creaking lyre, + That whetstone of the teeth, monotony in wire." + +[Footnote A: "Memoirs of the Celebrated Persons comprising the Kit-Cat +Club."] + +"The French poet invited Maynwaring to his country seat, where he +behaved to him in a very hospitable manner, and frequently conversed +with him respecting the merits of our English poets, of whom, however, +he affected to know but little, and for whom he pretended to care +still less. Monsieur de la Fontaine was also at times one of their +company, and always spoke in very respectful terms of the poetry of +the sister nation. Boileau's pretending to be ignorant of Dryden +'argued himself unknown'; but, perhaps, another reason may be assigned +why the French writers found it convenient to know as little as +possible of their English contemporary, who in many of his admirable +prefaces and dedications has taken some trouble to explain the +frivolity of the French poets, their tiresome _petit maître-ship_, and +all the finessing and trick with which they endeavour to make amends +to their readers for positive deficiency of genius." + +After playing the _dilettante_ in France, Maynwaring returned home, +and in time became a staunch Whig, a Government official, and, later +on, a Member of Parliament. The cause of the Pretender knew him no +more, and in future this brilliant gentleman would be one of the +greatest friends of that stupid Hanoverian family which waited +drowsily, across the sea, for the death of Anne. + +But what counted all the glamour of public life compared to the +possession of Nance Oldfield and an honoured seat at the festive board +of the Kit-Cat Club? Love and conviviality, youth and wit, carried the +day, and through the influence of these seductive companions handsome +Arthur failed to achieve greatness as a statesman. But when it came +to waging political warfare against sour Swift, or to assisting Dick +Steele with the "Tatler," or--better still--toasting some fair one at +the Club,[A] this _bon viveur_ was in his finest mood. + +[Footnote A: The (Kit-Cat) club originated in the hospitality of Jacob +Tonson, the bookseller, who, once a week, was host at the house in +Shire Lane to a gathering of writers. In an occasional poem on the +Kit-Cat club, attributed to Sir Richard Blackmore, Jacob is read +backwards into Bocaj, and we are told: + + "One Night in Seven at this convenient seat + Indulgent Bocaj did the Muses treat; + Their Drink was gen'rous Wine and Kit-Cat's Pyes their Meat. + Hence did th' Assembly's Title first arise, + And Kit-Cat Wits spring first from Kit-Cat's Pyes." + +About the year 1700 this gathering of wits produced a club in which +the great Whig chiefs were associated with foremost Whig writers, +Tonson being secretary. It was as much literary as political, and its +"toasting glasses," each inscribed with lines to a reigning beauty, +caused Arbuthnot to derive its value from "its pell mell pack of +toasts." + + Of old Cats and young Kits. + +Tonson built a room for the Club at Barn Elms to which each member +gave his portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller, who was himself a member. +The pictures were on a new-sized canvas adopted to the height of the +walls, whence the name "Kit-Cat" came to be applied generally +to three-quarter length portraits.--HENRY MORLEY'S Notes on the +_Spectator_.] + +It is to be supposed that at some time or other the health of Mistress +Oldfield was drunk by the Kit-Cats, whose custom of honouring +womankind in this bibulous way may have given rise to Pope's plaintive +query: + + "Say why are beauties prais'd and honoured most, + The wise man's passion, and the vain man's toast? + Why deck'd with all that land and sea afford, + Why Angels call'd, and angel-like adored?" + +And if the actress was thus deified or spiritualised, who drained his +glass more fervently than did Arthur Maynwaring? For whatever may have +been the faults of this dashing Whig, he had the courage of his sins, +and took up his abode with Anne in the full light of day, as though +a marriage ceremony were a bagatelle not worth the recollecting. The +world was forgiving, to be sure, nor is it probable that either one +of this easily-mated pair suffered any loss of public esteem by the +union. Dukes--nay, even Duchesses--were glad to meet Nance, and +Royalty allowed her to bask in the sunshine of its gracious approval. +"She was to be seen on the terrace at Windsor, walking with the +consorts of dukes, and with countesses, and wives of English barons, +and the whole gay group might be heard calling one another by their +Christian names." + +No wonder that the women of fashion, none of them saints, loved +Oldfield and winked at the elasticity of her moral ethics. The dear +creature was so bright in conversation, so full of _espièglerie_, and, +still more important, she looked so charming in her succession of +handsome toilettes, that she could be ever sure of a cordial welcome. +"Flavia," as Steele calls her, "is ever well-dressed, and always +the genteelest woman you meet, but the make of her mind very much +contributes to the ornament of her body. She has the greatest +simplicity of manners of any of her sex. This makes everything look +native about her, and her clothes are so exactly fitted, that they +appear, as it were, part of her person. Every one that sees her knows +her to be of quality; but her distinction is owing to her manner, +and not to her habit. Her beauty is full of attraction, but not of +allurement. There is such a composure in her looks, and propriety in +her dress, that you would think it impossible she should change the +garb you one day see her in, for anything so becoming until you next +day see her in another. There is no mystery in this, but that however +she is apparelled, she is herself the same: for there is so immediate +a relation between our thoughts and gestures that a woman must think +well to look well." + + * * * * * + +Here, verily, was an actress who could set the town wild by the beauty +and exquisite taste of her costumes, and who was conscientious enough, +nevertheless, to keep the millinery phase of her art modestly in the +background. You, ladies, who depend for theatrical success upon the +elegance of your gowns, and fondly believe that fairness of face and +litheness of figure will atone for a thousand dramatic sins, take +pattern by the industry of Oldfield. It will be a much better pattern +than those over which you are accustomed to worry your pretty heads. +The enterprising dressmakers who go to the play to get inspiration for +new clothes may cease to worship you, but think of the other sort of +inspiration which you will give to lovers of the drama! Then shall +there be no more announcements to the effect that, "Miss Lighthead +will act Lady Macbeth in ten Parisian gowns made by Worth," or that +when she treats us to the death of Marguerite Gautier (the aforesaid +Mdlle. Gautier dying, as everybody knows, in actual poverty) "Miss +Lighthead will wear diamonds representing one hundred thousand +dollars." + +There is not much to say about the domesticity of Nance and Arthur +Maynwaring. How could there be? The lady kept house for her lord and +master with grace and modesty (if it seems not paradoxical to mention +modesty in this alliance), and it is safe to believe that more than +one member of the Kit-Cat Club often tasted a bit of beef and pudding, +and sipped a glass of port, at the table of the happy pair. Congreve, +the particular friend and _protégé_ of the host, must have dined more +than once with brilliant Nance, regaling his plump being with the joy +of food and drink, and wondering, perhaps, how any one could prefer +the hostess to his particular _chère-amie_, Anne Bracegirdle. And +Oldfield, of what did she think as she gazed into the rounded face of +Mr. Congreve, or listened to the merry wit of her devoted liege? Did +the ghost of poor, dead Farquhar ever arise before her, the reminder +of a day when love was younger and passion stronger? Let us ask no +impertinent questions. + +What with acting, and supping, and an easy conscience, Mistress +Oldfield gaily trod the primrose path of dalliance, and Cupid hovered +near, albeit there was no law to chain him to the scene. But one day +he took to his wings and flew away, after witnessing the untimely +death (November 1712) of Mr. Maynwaring. The latter made his exit with +the assistance of three physicians, and Nance was near to smooth the +departure.[A] Then came the funeral, and after that Mrs. Mayn--Mrs. +Oldfield dried her lovely eyes (did she not have enough weeping to do +when she played in tragedy?), and began once more to think upon the +joys of existence. + +[Footnote A: He died at St. Albans, November 13, 1712, of a +consumption, and was attended in his last illness by Doctors Garth, +Radcliffe and Blackmore. In his will he appointed Mrs. Oldfield, the +celebrated actress, his executrix, with whom he had lived for several +years, and by whom he had a son, named Arthur Maynwaring. His +estate was equally divided between this child, its mother and his +sister.--"Memoirs of the Celebrated Persons Comprising the Kit-Kat +Club."] + +When General Churchill, a nephew of the great Duke of Marlborough, +suggested to the disconsolate widow-by-brevet that she should share +his home, the proposal was accepted, and the actress entered for +a second time into a free-and-easy compact, and for a second time +remained faithful thereto until her new admirer went the way of Mr. +Maynwaring. It was even rumoured--scandalous gossip!--that the two +were married; and one day the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen +Caroline, asked the "incomparable sweet girl," who was attending a +royal levee, whether such were indeed the case. "So it is said, may +it please your Royal Highness," diplomatically replied Nance, "but we +have not owned it yet." + +To Churchill our unsteady heroine presented one son, and it was +through the marriage of the latter that the swift-running blood of +Oldfield now courses through the veins of the first Earl of Cadogan's +descendants.[A] This son and the one who bore the name of Maynwaring +were the only two children credited, or discredited, to the actress, +but there appears to have been a mysterious daughter, a Miss Dye +Bertie, who became, as Mrs. Delany tells us, "the pink of fashion +in the _beau monde_, and married a nobleman." It would not be wise, +however, to peer too closely into the dim vista of the past. The +picture might prove unpleasant. + +[Footnote A: Her son, Colonel Churchill, once, unconsciously, saved +Sir Robert Walpole from assassination, through the latter riding home +from the House in the Colonel's chariot instead of alone in his own. +Unstable Churchill married a natural daughter of Sir Robert, and +their daughter Mary married, in 1777, Charles Sloane, first Earl of +Cadogan.... When Churchill and his wife were travelling in France, a +Frenchman, knowing he was connected with poets or players, asked him +if he was Churchill the famous poet. "I am not," said Mrs. Oldfield's +son. "Ma foi!" rejoined the polite Frenchman, "so much the worse for +you."--DR. DORAN.] + +Surely we may have charity for Oldfield, when she dispensed the same +virtue to those around her. Towards none did she show it more sweetly +than to that disreputable fraud and alleged man of genius, Richard +Savage. In his own feverish day Dick Savage cut a literary swath more +wide than enviable, but when he is viewed from the unsympathetic light +of the present he seems merely a clever vagabond. Yet Dr. Johnson, who +could be so stern towards some of his contemporaries, condescended +to love the aforesaid vagabond, in a ponderous, elephantine way, +and deified him by writing the life of the ingrate, or an apology +therefor. Savage had, once upon a time, led the youthful Johnson more +than a few feet away from the path of rectitude, but the philosopher +forgave, without forgetting, the wiles of the tempter, and treated +him with a generosity by no means deserved. In the years of his +prosperity--and the remembrance did him credit--Johnson could never +forget that Savage and himself had been poor together, and had often +wandered through London with hardly a penny to show between them. + + * * * * * + +"It is melancholy to reflect," says Boswell, "that Johnson and Savage +were sometimes in such extreme indigence that they could not pay for +a lodging; so that they have wandered together whole nights in the +streets. Yet in these almost incredible scenes of distress, we may +suppose that Savage mentioned many of the anecdotes with which Johnson +afterwards enriched the life of this unhappy companion, and those of +other poets. + +"He told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that one night in particular, when +Savage and he walked round St. James's Square for want of a lodging, +they were not at all depressed by their situation; but in high spirits +and brimful of patriotism, traversed the square for several hours, +inveighed against the Minister, and resolved they would _stand by +their country_." + + * * * * * + +The claim of Savage that he was the illegitimate son of the Countess +of Macclesfield--a claim which he was always asserting to the point of +coarseness--seems to have been the stock-in-trade of this vagabond's +life. There never was proof that the relationship which he thus +flaunted really existed; for, although the conduct of the Countess[A] +was unpardonable, the poet could never show that he had been the +mysterious infant which had this lady for its mother and Lord Rivers +for an unnatural father. The child disappeared, and nothing more was +ever known of its existence. + +[Footnote A: Anne Mason, wife of Charles Gerrard, first Earl of +Macclesfield, was divorced from that nobleman by an Act of Parliament. +Another earl, Richard Savage, Lord Rivers, was the co-respondent. +This was the same Countess of Macclesfield who subsequently married +Cibber's friend, Colonel Brett.] + +But Savage discovered, or affected to discover, that he was the +missing one, and from that moment made the Countess miserable by his +importunities for recognition and money, more particularly for +the latter. "It was to no purpose," records Dr. Johnson, "that he +frequently solicited her to admit him to see her; she avoided him with +the most vigilant precaution, and ordered him to be excluded from her +house, by whomsoever he might be introduced, and what reason soever he +might give for entering it." And the Doctor, who had an abiding and +very misplaced confidence in the fellow, adds plaintively: "Savage was +at the same time so touched with the discovery of his real mother that +it was his frequent practice to walk in the dark evenings for several +hours before her door in hopes of seeing her as she might come by +accident to the window, or cross her apartment with a candle in her +hand." + +"Touched with the discovery," forsooth! 'Twas a species of blackmail +cloaked in the guise of filial sentiment. + +This talented blackguard was wont to pray for alms from Mistress +Oldfield; and that dear charitable creature (are not most actresses +dear, charitable creatures?) would often waste her practical sympathy +upon him. She despised the man, but, with that generosity so +characteristic of her craft, was ever ready to relieve his +necessities.[A] Well, well, how the glitter from a few guineas can +envelop the fragile doner in a golden light, and throw over her faults +the soft glow of forgiveness. + +[Footnote A: In this (Johnson's) "Life of Savage" 'tis related that +Mrs. Oldfield was very fond of Mr. Savage's conversation, and allowed +him an annuity during her life of £50. These facts are equally +ill-grounded; there was no foundation for them. That Savage's +misfortunes pleaded for pity, and had the desired effect on Mrs. +Oldfield's compassion, is certain; but she so much disliked the man, +and disapproved his conduct, that she never admitted him to her +conversation, nor suffered him to enter her house. She indeed often +relieved him with such donations as spoke her generous disposition. +But this was on the solicitation of friends, who frequently set his +calamities before her in the most piteous light; and, from a principle +of humanity, she became not a little instrumental in saving his +life.--CIBBER'S "Lives of the Poets."] + +Savage himself once turned player, and no one must have been more +amused thereat than the Oldfield. It happened during the summer of +1723, when the poet, who was in his customary state of (theatrical) +destitution, determined to replenish his shabby purse by bringing out +a tragedy. While this play, "The Tragedy of Sir Thomas Overbury,"[A] +was in rehearsal at Drury Lane, Colley Cibber kept the author in +clothes, and the Laureate's son Theophilus, then a very young man, +studied the part of Somerset. The principal actors were not in London +just then, it being the off season, when the younger players strutted +across the classic boards of the house, and Savage determined himself +to enact Sir Thomas. He did so with melancholy results; even Johnson +admits the failure of so presumptuous a leap before the footlights, +"for neither his voice, look, nor gesture were such as were expected +on the stage; and he was so much ashamed of having been reduced to +appear as a player, that he always blotted out his name from the list +when a copy of his tragedy was to be shown to his friends."[B] + +[Footnote A: Savage, with his usual bad taste, published this tragedy +as the work of "Richard Savage, _son of the late Earl Rivers_."] + +[Footnote B: In the publication of his performance he was more +successful, for the rays of genius that glimmered in it, that +glimmered through all the mists which poverty and Cibber had been able +to spread over it, procured him the notice and esteem of many persons +eminent for their rank, their virtue, and their wit. Of this play, +acted, printed, and dedicated, the accumulated profits arose to an +hundred pounds, which he thought at that time a very large sum, having +been never master of so much before. In the "Dedication," for which +he received ten guineas, there is nothing remarkable. The preface +contains a very liberal enconium on the blooming excellence of Mr. +Theophilus Cibber, which Mr. Savage could not in the latter part of +his life see his friends about to read without snatching the play out +of their hands.--DR. JOHNSON.] + +What a sublime hypocrite our Richard was, to be sure. That he felt so +keenly the disgrace (?) of "having been reduced to appear as a player" +was, no doubt, a sentiment intended for the exclusive ear of the great +lexicographer, whose prejudice against the stage and its followers was +strong to the point of absurdity. Despite the qualms of the poet +over exposing his sacred self to the gaze of an audience he had no +sensitiveness in receiving the money of an actress, and he was willing +enough to have her aid in another direction. + +That aid was cheerfully given once upon a time when Savage came +dangerously near the scaffold. This prince of scamps and wanderer +among the beery precincts of pot-houses happened to stroll one night, +accompanied by two choice spirits (and himself full of spirits) into +a disreputable coffee-house near Charing Cross. The three men rudely +pushed their way into a parlour where some other roisterers were +drinking; the intrusion was naturally resented, and as each and every +one of the party chanced to be better filled with wine than with +politeness, a brawl was the consequence. Swords were drawn and Savage +killed a Mr. Sinclair, after which drunken act he cut the head of +a barmaid who tried to hold him. Then more swearing, shrieking and +sword-thrusting, a cry for soldiers, a flight from the coffee-house, +and an almost instant arrest. A pretty picture, was it not? + +When Savage was put on trial for his life, he pleaded that the killing +of Sinclair was done in self-defence, and his acquittal would probably +have followed but for the shrewdness of the prosecution. This +prosecution was conducted by Francis Page, whose severity Pope +immortalised in the lines: + + "Slander or poison dread from Delia's rage + Hard-words or hanging--if your judge be Page." + +Page surely understood human nature, or that portion of it +appertaining to the average jurymen, and he disposed of Mr. Savage's +defence by one well-directed blow when he said to the good men and +true: "Gentlemen of the jury, you are to consider that Mr. Savage is +a very great man, a much greater man than you or I, gentlemen of the +jury; that he wears very fine clothes, much finer clothes than you +or I, gentlemen of the jury; that he has abundance of money in his +pocket, much more money than you or I, gentlemen of the jury; but, +gentlemen of the jury, is it not a very hard case, gentlemen of the +jury, that Mr. Savage should therefore kill you, or me, gentlemen of +the jury." + +Whereupon the defendant began to make a speech in his own behalf, but +his flow of eloquence was quenched by the judge, and the jury soon +found Savage as well as Gregory, one of his companions in the drunken +broil, to be guilty of murder. Many influences were now brought to +bear on Queen Caroline, consort of George II., to secure a pardon for +the rascal, but that good lady was for a time obdurate. She had heard +a few choice stories anent the man, and among them, one which Dr. +Johnson glosses over in this way: "Mr. Savage, when he had discovered +his birth, had an incessant desire to speak to his mother, who always +avoided him in public, and refused him admission into her house. +One evening walking, as it was his custom, in the street that she +inhabited, he saw the door of her house by accident open, he entered +it, and, finding no person in the passage to hinder him, went upstairs +to salute her. She discovered him before he entered her chamber, +alarmed the family with the most distressful outcries, and when she +had by her screams gathered them about her, ordered them to drive +out of the house that villain who had forced himself in upon her and +endeavoured to murder her. Savage, who had attempted with the most +submissive tenderness to soften her rage, hearing her utter so +detestable an accusation, thought it prudent to retire." + +Thus the Queen refused to interfere until the Countess of Hertford +pleaded the cause of the imprisoned poet. In the meantime Mistress +Oldfield interceded with the mighty Robert Walpole, and the result of +all this wire-pulling was that Savage received the king's pardon,[A] +being thus left free to continue the persecution of his alleged +mother, to beg from friends and strangers alike, and to follow a +mode of life which scandalised even his kindly biographer. And when +Oldfield, the latchets of whose shoes he was not worthy to tie, played +her last part and passed away from the earthly stage, Richard wore +mourning for her, as for a mother, "but did not celebrate her in +elegies;[B] because he knew that too great profusion of praise would +only have revived those faults which his natural equity did not allow +him to think less because they were committed by one who favoured him; +but of which, though his virtue would not endeavour to palliate them, +his gratitude would not suffer him to prolong the memory or diffuse +the censure." + +[Footnote A: March 1728. It is cheerful to know that Mr. Gregory also +escaped hanging. It was contended during the trial, and afterwards, +that the testimony against both these defendants was more damning than +the facts warranted.] + +[Footnote B: Nevertheless Savage did write a poem in Oldfield's +honour, although he did not sign his virtuous name thereto. The verses +are quoted by Chetwood. _Vide_ Chapter XI.] + +Poor, crusty Samuel! what rot you could write now and then, and how +you did hate players and their craft. But may not the bewildered +reader ask how the aphorisms of the doctor and the disreputable +affairs of Savage concern that home life of Nance to which the +chapter is presumably consecrated? In answer the writer can only cry +"Peccavi," and, having done so, will sin boldly again by giving one +more anecdote. The story concerns Savage, but Steele is the hero of +it, and as winsome Dick is always welcome, we may take leave of the +other Dick in a pleasant way. + +Savage was once desired by Sir Richard (says Johnson), with an air +of the utmost importance, to come very early to his house the next +morning. Mr. Savage came as he had promised, found the chariot at the +door, and Sir Richard waiting for him and ready to go out. What was +intended, and whither they were to go, Savage could not conjecture, +and was not willing to inquire; but immediately seated himself with +Sir Richard. The coachman was ordered to drive, and they hurried with +the utmost expedition to Hyde Park Corner, where they stopped at a +petty tavern and retired to a private room. Sir Richard then informed +him that he intended to publish a pamphlet, and that he had desired +him to come thither that he might write for him. He soon sat down to +the work. Sir Richard dictated, and Savage wrote, till the dinner that +had been ordered was put upon the table. Savage was surprised at the +meanness of the entertainment, and after some hesitation ventured to +ask for wine, which Sir Richard, not without reluctance, ordered to +be brought. They then finished their dinner, and proceeded in their +pamphlet, which they concluded in the afternoon. + +Mr. Savage then imagined his task over, and expected that Sir Richard +would call for the reckoning and return home; but his expectations +deceived him, for Sir Richard told him that he was without money, and +that the pamphlet must be sold before the dinner could be paid for; +and Savage was therefore obliged to go and offer their new production +to sale for two guineas, which with some difficulty he obtained. Sir +Richard then returned home, having retired that day only to avoid his +creditors, and composed the pamphlet only to discharge his reckoning. + +Savage also told Johnson another merry tale of careless Dick. "Sir +Richard Steele having one day invited to his house a great number of +persons of the first quality, they were surprised at the number of +liveries which surrounded the table; and after dinner, when wine and +mirth had set them free from the observation of a rigid ceremony, +one of them inquired of Sir Richard how such an expensive train of +domestics could be consistent with his fortune. Sir Richard very +frankly confessed that they were fellows of whom he would very +willingly be rid. And being then asked why he did not discharge them, +declared that they were bailiffs, who had introduced themselves with +an execution, and whom, since he could not send them away, he had +thought it convenient to embellish with liveries, that they might +do him credit while they stayed. His friends were diverted with the +expedient, and by paying the debt discharged their attendants, having +obliged Sir Richard to promise that they should never again find him +graced with a retinue of the same kind." + + +These little pleasantries are echoes of the halcyon days when Steele +thought Savage a very fine fellow, made him an allowance and even +proposed to become the poet's father-in-law. But the recipient of all +this favour was caddish enough to ridicule his patron, a kind friend +mentioned the fact to Sir Richard, and the knight shut his doors on +the ingrate. Let us, likewise, give the fellow his _congé_. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE MIMIC WORLD + + +We have seen that Oldfield affected to despise tragedy, and was wont +to suggest Mistress Porter as a lady better suited than herself to the +purposes of train-bearing. And as the present chapter will be devoted +to a few of Nance's contemporaries let us linger, if only for an +instant, over the imposing memory of one whom cynical Horace Walpole +thought even finer than Garrick in certain scenes of passion. This +"ornament to human nature," as a biographer warmly called the Porter, +played her first childish part in a Lord Mayor's pageant during +the reign of James II., appearing as the Genius of Britain, and +incidentally falling under the august notice of another genius of +Britain, the great Mr. Betterton. That worthy man regarded the little +girl with prophetic eyes, saw in her a wealth of undeveloped talent, +and was soon instructing the chit in the mysteries of dramatic art. +Sometimes the actress-in-miniature revolted, poor mite ("she should +have been in the nursery, the minx," says some practical reader) and +then noble Thomas would give vent to an awful threat. She must speak +and act as she was directed, or else--horrible thought--the child +should be thrown into the basket of an orange-girl and buried under +one of the vine leaves which hid the luscious fruit! And with +that punishment hanging over her, the novice went on learning and +originating, until one day London woke up to find a new tragedienne +within its boundaries. + +[Illustration: Mr. Mills, Mrs. Porter, Mr. Cibber.] + +'Twas a tragedienne, be it added, who possessed no wonderful charm +of person. She was pleasing in figure and bearing, but her voice was +naturally harsh, her features did not shine forth loveliness, and when +the scene wherein she walked called neither for vehemence of feeling, +nor melting tenderness, her elocution became a monotonous cadence.[A] +Yet in moments of dramatic excitement, or in places where the deep +note of pathos had to be sounded, Porter played with a distinction +that either thrilled the spectator or reduced him to the verge of +tears. She threw cadence and monotony to the four winds of heaven, +or rather to the four corners of the stage, and spoke with the +earnestness of one inspired. + +[Footnote A: Mrs. Porter was tall, fair, well-shaped, and easy and +dignified in action. But she was not handsome, and her voice had a +small degree of tremor. Moreover, she imitated, or, rather, faultily +exceeded, Mrs. Barry in the habit of prolonging and toning her +pronunciation, sometimes to a degree verging upon a chant; but +whether it was that the public ear was at that period accustomed to a +demi-chant, or that she threw off the defect in the heat of passion, +it is certain that her general judgment and genius, in the highest +bursts of tragedy, inspired enthusiasm in all around her, and that +she was thought to be alike mistress of the terrible and the +tender.--THOMAS CAMPBELL.] + +As Queen Catherine Mrs. Porter was all mournful grace and dignity, as +Lady Macbeth she breathed of battle, murder and sudden death, and in +the rôle of Belvidera she showed yet another phase of her incomparable +art. "I remember Mrs. Porter, to whom nature had been so niggard in +voice and face, so great in many parts, as Lady Macbeth, Alicia in +'Jane Shore,' Hermione in the 'Distressed Mother,' and many parts of +the kind, that her great action, eloquence of look and gesture, moved +astonishment; and yet I have heard her declare she left the action +to the possession of the sentiments in the part she performed." Thus +wrote Chetwood, whose good fortune it was to see Oldfield, and Porter, +and a host of other famous players, not forgetting, in later days, the +wonderful Garrick himself. + +Unlike several of her ilk, Mistress Porter could play the heroine off +the stage as well as on. She lived at Heywoodhill, near Hendon, and +used to wend her way homeward every night, at the conclusion of the +play, in a one-horse chaise. The roads were dangerous, and highwaymen +lurked in the neighbourhood, but the actress put her faith in +Providence--and a brace of pistols which she always carried. The +pistols came very nicely to her rescue one evening when a robber +waylaid the chaise and put to the traveller the conventional question +as to whether she most valued her money or her life. Nothing daunted +by the impertinence of this ethical query, Mrs. Porter pointed one of +the weapons at the intruder, and he, so goes the story, gracefully +surrendered, for the reason that he was himself without firearms. The +man made the best of the situation, however, by assuring the occupant +of the vehicle that he was "no common thief," and had been driven to +his present course by the wants of a starving family. He told her, +at the same time, where he lived, and urged his distresses with such +earnestness, that she spared him all the money in her purse, which was +about ten guineas.[A] + +[Footnote A: Bellchambers' "Memoirs." This episode happened in the +summer of 1731.] + +Thereupon the highwayman departed, and Mrs. Porter whipped up her +horse. In her excitement she must have used the lash too freely, for +the animal started to run, the chaise was overturned, and the actress +dislocated her thigh bone. When she had in part recovered from the +accident, the victim made up a purse of sixty pounds, subscribed +among her friends, and sent it to the poverty-stricken family of the +desperado. How Nance would have laughed at the story had she been at +the theatre to hear it told. But there was no more merriment for +this daughter of smiles; she was lying cold and still amid the stony +grandeur of Westminster Abbey. + +Poor Porter outlived Oldfield for more than thirty years and, having +also outlived an annuity settled upon herself, spent her declining +days in what polite writers call straightened circumstances. One of +the closing scenes of her career shows us a meeting between this +veteran of the stage and Dr. Johnson, who could allow his kindness +of heart and sense of generosity to overcome his hatred of things +theatrical. It is easy to imagine the whole interview: the shrunken +face of the Porter beaming all over with an appreciation of the honour +paid her, and the Doctor full of benevolence and patronising courtesy, +even to the extent of drinking cheap tea without a grumble. After the +philosopher takes his leave he will likewise take with him a vivid +memory of the beldam's many wrinkles--so many, indeed, that "a +picture of old age in the abstract might have been taken from her +countenance."[A] + +[Footnote A: Dr. Johnson was pleased to avow that "Mrs. Porter in the +vehemence of rage, and Mrs. Clive in the sprightliness of humour, he +had never seen equalled."] + +Of a different calibre was Lacy Ryan, an ill-trained genius who could +shine pretty well in both tragedy and comedy and from whom, according +to Foote, + + "... succeeding Richards took the cue, + And hence his style, if not the colour, drew."[A] + +[Footnote A: Justice has scarcely been done to Ryan's merit. Garrick, +on going with Woodward to see his Richard with a view of being amused, +owned that he was astonished at the genius and power he saw struggling +to make itself felt through the burden of ill-training, uncouth +gestures, and an ungraceful and slovenly figure. He was generous +enough to own that all the merit there was in his own playing of +Richard he had drawn from studying this less fortunate player.--PERCY +FITZGERALD.] + +Like Mrs. Porter, Ryan was a youthful disciple of Betterton, and was +brought to the notice of Roscius in a curious fashion. One day, when +Lacy had just begun, as a boy of sixteen or seventeen, to court the +dramatic muses, he was cast for the rôle of Seyton, the old officer +who attends on Macbeth, and was, no doubt, charmed with the +assignment. To wait upon Macbeth, in however humble a capacity, was +in itself no mean honour, and when the aforesaid Macbeth would be +Betterton himself, the importance of the task was re-doubled. + +That afternoon Ryan came on the stage in all the glory of a +full-bottomed wig (imagine playing Shakespeare these days with +full-bottomed wigs) and a smiling young face, being very much pleased +with himself and the world in general. To Betterton, who had expected +to see in Seyton a henchman of mature years, and who up to this moment +had been unconscious of Lacy's existence, the appearance of the boy +came as a shock. Had the witches of the tragedy been turned into +beautiful children he could not have been more surprised. However, he +gave the new Seyton an encouraging look, and the stripling played the +part in a way to earn the approbation of the great actor. After the +performance was over, Betterton scolded old Downes, the prompter, for +"sending a child to him instead of a man advanced in years." + +This anecdote seems to show that the art of "make-up" had not reached +perfection in those times, for a few well-put strokes of the pencil +should have destroyed the juvenile aspect of Seyton. It must not be +supposed, nevertheless, that the decoration of the face was unknown, +and an entry in Pepys' delightful diary proves that "make-up" of a +certain kind flourished at the Restoration. "To the King's house," +says Pepys, "and there going in met with Knipp, and she took us up +into the tireing-rooms;[A] and to the women's shift, where Nell +(Gwyne) was dressing herself, and was all unready, and is very pretty, +prettier than I thought. (Imagine the gloating eyes of the old +hypocrite.) And into the scene-room, and there sat down, and she gave +us fruit: and here I read the questions to Knipp, while she answered +me, through all her part of 'Flora's Figarys,' which was acted to-day. +But, Lord! to see how they were both painted, would make a man mad, +and did make me loath them: and what base company of men comes among +them; and how loudly they talk! And how poor the men are in clothes, +and yet what a show they make on the stage by candle-light, is very +observable. But to see how Nell cursed, for having so few people in +the pit, was strange," _et cetera_.[B] + +[Footnote A: Mrs. Knipp was an actress belonging to the King's Company +and Mr. Pepys had for her a timid admiration.] + +[Footnote B: In his notes to Cibber's "Apology," Lowe suggests the +plausible theory that young actors playing "juveniles" did not use +any "make-up" or paint, but went on the stage with their natural +complexion. He instances this paragraph from Cibber: "The first thing +that enters into the head of a young actor is that of being a heroe: +In this ambition I was soon snubb'd by the insufficiency of my voice; +to which might be added an uniform'd meagre person (tho' then not +ill-made) with a dismal pale complexion."] + +To leave the merry days of Charles II, and wander back to those of +Queen Anne, it may be said that Ryan made his first success as the +Marcus in the original production of "Cato." It was a success rather +added to than otherwise by an adventure of which this actor was the +unfortunate victim. "In the run of that celebrated tragedy," writes +Chetwood, "he was accidently brought into a fray with some of our +Tritons on the Thames; and, in the scuffle, a blow on the nose was +given him by one of these water-bullies, who neither regard men or +manners. I remember, the same night, as he was brought on the bier, +after his suppos'd death in the fourth act of 'Cato,' the blood, from +the real wound in the face, gush'd out with violence; that hurt had +no other effect than just turning his nose a little, tho' not to +deformity; yet some people imagine it gave a very small alteration to +the tone of his voice, tho' nothing disagreeable." And a very good +advertisement it was, no doubt. + +In later years another much-discussed accident befell Mr. Ryan. As he +was going home from the theatre one night, the actor was attacked by a +footpad, and received in his face two bullets which broke a portion of +his jaw. "By the help of a lamp [again is the quotation from Chetwood] +the robber knew Mr. Ryan, as I have been inform'd, begg'd his pardon +for his mistake, and ran off. Of this hurt, too, he recover'd, after a +long illness, and play'd with success, as before, without any seeming +alteration of voice or face. His Royal Highness, upon this accident +(was it the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II?) sent him a +handsome present; and others, of the nobility, copy'd the laudable +example of the second illustrious person in the three kingdoms." + +This was Lacy Ryan, who in his time played many different parts, among +them Iago, Hamlet, Macduff, Captain Plume, and Orestes. He was not in +any sense of the word a great actor, but he well adorned the station +of theatrical life in which it had pleased heaven to place him, and +strutted his lengthy hour upon the stage with much satisfaction to +his companions and the public. Even when Ryan had to kill a bully in +self-defence (it was a fellow named Kelly, who loved to haunt the +coffee-houses, pick quarrels with peaceable citizens, and then half +murder them), the world looked on approvingly, and averred that the +player had acted with his usual conscientiousness. + +Another contemporary of Nance was Benjamin Johnson,[A] who achieved +curiously enough some of his greatest successes in the plays of his +namesake, the other Ben Jonson. He began life as a scene painter, but +afterwards turned his attention to the front, rather than the back, +of the stage--or, as he would humorously explain, "left the saint's +occupation to take that of a sinner." Johnson seems to have been a man +of the world, and he saw a good deal of life, even though he never +passed through the rough-and-tumble adventures of Lacy Ryan. When he +was born (1665) Betterton dominated the boards; when he died (1742) +Garrick had become the talk of London; and it is probable that in his +latter years Ben could tell many a story of interesting experiences. + +[Footnote A: Ben Johnson excelled greatly in all his namesake's +comedies, then frequently acted. He was of all comedians the chastest +and closest observer of nature. Johnson never seemed to know that he +was before an audience; he drew his character as the poet designed +it.--DAVIES.] + +There was one story, at least, that this actor used to relate with +much unction after a visit which he once paid to Dublin. The hero of +the affair was an Irishman, named Baker, who relieved the monotony +of his work as a master pavior by acting Sir John Falstaff and other +parts. When he was in the streets, overseeing the labours of his men, +this pavior-artist usually rehearsed one of his characters, muttering +the lines, gesticulating, and almost forgetting that he was without +the sacred walls of a theatre. The workmen soon got accustomed to +these out-of-door performances, and everything proceeded with the +utmost smoothness, until one exciting day when Baker chanced to be +alone with two new paviors. These recruits (countrymen from Cheshire) +were much alarmed at a sudden change in the demeanour of their master, +whose eyes began to roll and lips to move under the pressure of some +strange emotion. Baker was merely rehearsing Falstaff; but the two men +made up their little minds that he had lost his head, and they felt +quite sure that their employer was a dangerous lunatic, when he gave +them a piercing glance, and cried: + +"Soft! who are you? Sir Walter Blunt: there's honour for you! here's +no vanity! I am as hot as molten lead, and as heavy too. God keep lead +out of me!" + +"Wauns! I'se blunt enough to take care of you, I'se warrant you," +shouted one of the workmen, who had now recovered what he presumed to +be his wits, and thereupon he and his companion laid violent hands on +Baker. A crowd soon gathered, and despite the indignant cries of +the master-pavior, who declared he was never more sane, this son of +Thespis was tied hand and foot, and carried home in triumph with a +howling mob for attendants. That ended Mr. Baker's rehearsal for the +nonce; and it is to be presumed that, when next he essayed the lusty +Sir John, he made sure of an appreciative audience. + +It is a seductive occupation to delve into the lives of these bygone +players, and there is always temptation to tarry long and lovingly +amid such chequered careers. But, like poor Joe, of Dickens, we must +keep moving on, and so leave Johnson and Baker for another actor +who waits to strut across the stage of these "Palmy Days." Thomas +Elrington is the new-comer; the same Elrington who sought to outshine +the tragic Barton Booth, without possessing either the genius or the +scholarship of that noble son of Melpomene. As a boy, Thomas was +apprenticed by an impecunious father to an upholsterer in Covent +Garden, but he cared more for the theatre than for his trade, and +was, no doubt, regarded by his employer as a future candidate for the +gallows. + + * * * * * + +"I remember when he was an apprentice," relates Chetwood, "we play'd +in several private plays; when we were preparing to act 'Sophonisba, +or Hannibal's Overthrow,' after I had wrote out my part of Massiva I +carried him the book of the play to study the part of King Masinissa. +I found him finishing a velvet cushion, and gave him the book: +but alas! before he could secrete it, his master (a hot, voluble +Frenchman), came in upon us, and the book was thrust under the velvet +of the cushion. His master, as usual, rated him for not working, with +a 'Morbleu! why a you not vark, Tom?' and stood over him so long that +I saw, with some mortification, the book irrecoverably stitch'd up in +the cushion never to be retriev'd till the cushion is worn to pieces. +Poor Tom cast many a desponding look upon me when he was finishing the +fate of the play, while every stitch went to both our hearts. + +"His master observing our looks, turn'd to me, and with words that +broke their necks over each other for haste, abused both of us. The +most intelligible of his great number of words were Jack Pudenges, and +the like expressions of contempt. But our play was gone for ever. + +"Another time," continues the biographer, "we were so bold to attempt +Shakespeare's 'Hamlet,' where our 'prentice Tom had the part of the +Ghost, father to young Hamlet. His armour was composed of pasteboard, +neatly painted. The Frenchman had intelligence of what we were about, +and to our great surprise and mortification, made one of our audience. +The Ghost in its first appearance is dumb to Horatio. While these +scenes past, the Frenchman only muttered between his teeth, and we +were in hopes his passion would subside; but when our Ghost began his +first speech to Hamlet, 'Mark me,' he replied, 'Begar, me vil marke +you presently!' and, without saying any more, beat our poor Ghost off +the stage through the street, while every stroke on the pasteboard +armour grieved the auditors (because they did not pay for their +seats), insomuch that three or four ran after the Ghost, and brought +him back in triumph, with the avenging Frenchman at his heels, who +would not be appeas'd till our Ghost promised him never to commit the +offence of acting again. A promise made, like many others, never to be +kept." + + * * * * * + +Elrington ultimately became a favourite player with Dublin audiences, +and then contested with Booth in the latter's own ground of London. He +never equalled the classic Barton, yet made a success in tragedy, and +was once asked (1728-9) to join the forces of Drury Lane for a term +of years. He told the managers that he could not think of permanently +leaving Ireland, where he was so well rewarded for his services, and +added, "There is not a gentleman's house there to which I am not a +welcome visitor," which shows that an actor can be a snob, like the +worst of us. + +When Elrington died, two years after the taking off of Oldfield, his +epitaph was written in these flattering lines:-- + + "Thou best of actors here interr'd, + No more thy charming voice is heard, + This grave thy corse contains: + Thy better part, which us'd to move + Our admiration, and our Love, + Has fled its sad remains. + + "Tho' there's no monumental brass, + Thy sacred relicks to encase, + Thou wondrous man of art! + A lover of the muse divine, + O! Elrington, shall be thy shrine, + And carve thee in his heart." + +One of Elrington's friends and artistic associates happened to be +John Evans, a player possessed of talent, fatness, and indolence. As +adventures seem to be in order in this chapter, let us recall two +which occurred to this gentleman at a time when he was in high favour +with the Irish. The first episode, making a warlike prologue to the +second, had for its scene a tavern in the good city of Cork, where +Evans had been invited to sup by some officers stationed in the +neighbourhood. Jack responded gladly to the hospitable suggestion; the +gathering proved a great success, the wine was circulated generously, +and many toasts were offered. When the actor was called upon for a +sentiment, he proposed the health of his gracious sovereign, Anne, +whereat all in the company were pleased with the exception of one +disloyal redcoat. Whether the latter had within him the contrariness +which cometh with too liberal dalliance with the flowing bowl, or +whether he chanced to be a Jacobite, further deponent sayeth not, but +it is at least certain that the officer was not pleased at the honour +paid to the Queen whose uniform he was willing to wear. So Mr. +Malcontent leaves the room, and then sends up word to poor, +inoffensive Jack, that he will be delighted to see that worthy below +stairs; whereupon Jack quietly steals away and finds his would-be +antagonist lurking behind a half-opened door. The soldier makes a +lunge with his sword at the player, who succeeds in disarming the +coward, and there the matter apparently stops. + +But the end was not yet. When Evans went to Dublin, he found that his +late challenger was circulating a lie, which made it appear that the +comedian had in somewise affronted the whole British Army. No sooner +did Jack put his face upon the stage than a great clamour arose, and +it was decreed by the bullies among the audience (of whom there are +ever a few in every house), that no play should be presented until the +culprit had publicly begged pardon for a sin which he never committed. +The play was "The Rival Queens," the part assigned to Evans that of +Alexander, but 'twas some time before this Alexander could be induced +to crave the forgiveness of the excitable Dublinites. Finally he +yielded to expediency, and, coming forward to the centre of the stage, +expressed his contrition. At this, a puppy in the pit cried out +"Kneel, you rascal!" and Evans, now thoroughly exasperated, tartly +answered: "No, you rascal! I'll kneel to none but God, and my Queen." +Then the performance began.[A] + +[Footnote A: "As there were many worthy gentlemen of the army who knew +the whole affair, the new rais'd clamour ceas'd, and the play went +through without any molestation, and, by degrees, things return'd to +their proper channel By this we may see, it is some danger for an +actor to be in the right."--CHETWOOD.] + +How Chetwood bubbles over with a stream of ever-flowing anecdote. Much +that he gives us in his "General History of the Stage" is only gossip, +yet what is there more fascinating than tittle-tattle about players? +The gossip of the drawing-room is merely inane, or else scandalous; +but shift the scene to the theatre, and a story no longer bores; it is +consecrated by the sacrament of interest. Is any apology necessary, +therefore, if the quotation marks be again brought into requisition. +This time the anecdote is of Thomas Griffith, an excellent comedian, +and a harmless poet. + +"After his commencing actor, he contracted a friendship with Mr. +Wilks; which chain remained unbroke till the death of that excellent +comedian. Tho' Mr. Griffith was very young, Mr. Wilks took him with +him to London (from Dublin), and had him entered for that season at +a small salary. The 'Indian Emperor' being ordered on a sudden to +be played, the part of Pizarro, a Spaniard, was wanting, which Mr. +Griffith procured, with some difficulty. Mr. Betterton being a little +indisposed, would not venture out to rehearsal, for fear of increasing +his indisposition, to the disappointment of the audience, who had not +seen our young stripling rehearse. But, when he came ready, at the +entrance, his ears were pierced with a voice not familiar to him. He +cast his eyes upon the stage, where he beheld the diminutive Pizarro, +with a truncheon as long as himself (his own words.) + +"He steps up to Downs, the prompter, and cry'd, 'Zounds, Downs, what +sucking scaramouch have you sent on there?' 'Sir,' replied Downs, +'He's good enough for a Spaniard; the part is small.' Betterton +return'd, 'If he had made his eyebrows his whiskers, and each whisker +a line, the part would have been two lines too much for such a monkey +in buskins.' + +"Poor Griffith stood on the stage, near the door, and heard every +syllable of the short dialogue, and by his fears knew who was meant by +it; but, happy for him, he had no more to speak that scene. When the +first act was over (by the advice of Downs) he went to make his excuse +with--'Indeed, Sir, I had not taken the part, but there was only I +alone out of the play.' 'I! I!' reply'd Betterton, with a smile, 'Thou +art but the tittle of an I.' Griffith seeing him in no ill humour told +him, 'Indians ought to be the best figures on the stage, as nature had +made them.' 'Very like,' reply'd Betterton, 'but it would be a double +death to an Indian cobbler to be conquer'd by such a weazle of a +Spaniard as thou art. And, after this night, let me never see a +truncheon in thy hand again, unless to stir the fire.' ... He took his +advice, laid aside the buskin, and stuck to the sock, in which he made +a figure equal to most of his contemporaries. + + "Our genius flutters with the plumes of youth, + But observation wings to steddy truth." + +No one can resist telling another story, this time of fat Charles +Hulet, whose abilities were only equalled by his corpulence. Having +been apprenticed to a bookseller, he straightway proceeded to take a +violent interest in the drama, and would often while away the evenings +by spouting Shakespeare and other authors. In lieu of a company to +support him young Hulet would designate each chair in the kitchen to +represent one of the characters in the play he was reciting. "One +night, as he was repeating the part of Alexander, with his wooden +representative of Clytus (an old elbow-chair), and coming to the +speech where the old General is to be kill'd, this young mock +Alexander snatch'd a poker instead of a javelin, and threw it with +such strength against poor Clytus, that the chair was kill'd upon +the spot, and lay mangled on the floor. The death of Clytus made a +monstrous noise, which disturbed the master in the parlour, who called +out to know the reason; and was answered by the cook below, 'Nothing, +sir, but that Alexander has kill'd Clytus.'" + + * * * * * + +In latter days Hulet took great pride in the sonorous tones of his +voice, and loved nothing more dearly than to steal up behind a man and +startle the unsuspecting one by giving a very loud "Hem." It was a +"Hem," however, which helped to make the actor's winding-sheet, for +one fine day he repeated the trick, burst a blood-vessel, and died +within twenty-four hours. + +Heaven bless all these merry vagabonds! We may not always wish to +follow in their footsteps, but we like to keep near them and pry into +their careless, happy lives. When the Bohemians enter a pot-house we +are too virtuous, presumably, to go in likewise, but we stand without, +to get a tempting whiff of hot negus and a snatch of some genial jest +or tuneful song. Then, if our players stray, perchance, into the +gloomy precincts of a pawn-shop, are we not quite prepared to steal up +to the window and discover what tribute is being paid to mine uncle? +And so, speaking of pot-houses, and negus, and pawn-shops, let us end +our extracts from the invaluable Chetwood with this unconventional +reminiscence of another player, Mr. John Thurmond. It was a custom at +that time for persons of the first rank and distinction to give their +birthday suits to the most favoured actors. I think Mr. Thurmond was +honoured by General Ingolsby with his. But his finances being at the +last tide of ebb, the rich suit was put in buckle (a cant word for +forty in the hundred interest). One night, notice was given that the +General would be present with the Government at the play, and all +the performers on the stage were preparing to dress out in the suits +presented. The spouse of Johnny (as he was commonly called) try'd all +her arts to persuade Mr. Holdfast, the pawnbroker (as it fell out, his +real name) to let go the cloaths for that evening, to be returned when +the play was over. But all arguments were fruitless; nothing but +the Ready, or a pledge of full equal value. Such people would have +despised a Demosthenes, or a Cicero, with all their rhetorical +flourishes, if their oratorian gowns had been in pledge. Well! what +must be done? The whole family in confusion and all at their wits-end; +disgrace, with her glaring eyes and extended mouth, ready to devour. +Fatal appearance! + + * * * * * + +"At last Winny, the wife (that is, Winnifrede), put on a compos'd +countenance (but, alas! with a troubled heart); stepp'd to a +neighbouring tavern, and bespoke a very hot negus, to comfort Johnny +in the great part he was to perform that night, begging to have the +silver tankard with the lid, because, as she said, 'a covering, and +the vehicle silver, would retain heat longer than any other metal,' +The request was comply'd with, the negus carry'd to the playhouse +piping hot, popp'd into a vile earthen mug--the tankard _l'argent_ +travelled _incog_. under her apron (like the Persian ladies veil'd), +popp'd into the pawnbroker's hands, in exchange for the suit--put on +and play'd its part, with the rest of the wardrobe; when its duty +was over, carried back to remain in its old depository; the tankard +return'd the right road; and, when the tide flowed with its lunar +influence, the stranded suit was wafted into safe harbour again, after +paying a little for 'dry docking,' which was all the damage received." + + * * * * * + +And Mr. Chetwood adds: + + "Thus woman's wit (tho' some account it evil) + With artful wiles can overreach the Devil." + +Among such as these, good, bad and indifferent, moral and otherwise, +did Mistress Oldfield pass what hours she consecrated to the theatre. +In the early years, when merely a poor, struggling postulant before +the altar of fame, the girl must have been more or less intimate with +her dramatic associates, but as time went on and Nance blazed into a +star of the first magnitude, the old feeling of fellowship may have +become weakened. Not that the actress was in any sense snobbish; +rather let it be said that the circumstances of her celebrity proved +quite enough, in the course of human affairs, to separate her from the +other players. Indeed, one of her biographers relates that Oldfield +always went in state to Drury Lane, accompanied by two footmen, and +that she seldom spoke to any one of the actors.[A] + +[Footnote A: She always went to the house (_i.e._, the theatre) in the +same dress she had worn at dinner in her visits to the houses of great +people; for she was much caressed on account of her general merit, and +her connection with Mr. Churchill. She used to go to the playhouse in +a chair, attended by two footmen; she seldom spoke to any one of +the actors, and was allowed a sum of money to buy her own +clothes.--"General Biographical Dictionary."] + +Nance may have made her entry into the green-room amid royal auspices, +but who can for a second believe that "she seldom spoke to any one +of the actors"? There was in her composition too much of sunshine to +warrant any such belief, and then we know that behind the scenes she +was ever affable and friendly. If she did not brook familiarity which +comes of contempt, and if she moved about among her companions with +dignity, then so much the better. + +Of Nance's sweetness of temper and sterling common-sense, Cibber +has left us an attractive memory. It seems that when the Drury Lane +management determined to revive "The Provoked Wife" of Sir John +Vanbrugh (January 1726), Colley suggested that Wilks should take a +rest during the run of the piece, and allow Barton Booth to play the +lover, Constant. The idea did not meet with Wilks' approval; "down +dropt his brow, and fur'd were his features"; and the green-room +became the scene of a violent spat between Cibber and himself, with +Mrs. Oldfield and other members of the company as excited listeners. +Finally the author of the "Apology" said: "Are you not every day +complaining of your being over-labour'd? And now, upon the first +offering to ease you, you fly into a passion, and pretend to make that +a greater grievance than t'other: But, Sir, if your being in or out of +the play is a hardship, you shall impose it upon yourself: The part is +in your hand, and to us it is a matter of indifference now whether you +take it or leave it." + +[Illustration: SIR JOHN VANBRUGH By Sir GODFREY KNELLER] + +Upon this Mr. Wilks "threw down the part upon the table, crossed +his arms, and sate knocking his heel upon the floor, as seeming to +threaten most when he said least." Hereupon Booth generously yielded +up the much disputed Constant to his rival with the remark that "for +his part, he saw no such great matter in acting every day; for he +believed it the wholsomest exercise in the world; it kept the spirits +in motion, and always gave him a good stomach"--and the elegant +Barton, be it remembered, was a great eater. + + * * * * * + +"Here," says Cibber, "I observed Mrs. Oldfield began to titter behind +her fan. But Wilks being more intent upon what Booth had said, +reply'd, every one could best feel for himself, but he did not pretend +to the strength of a pack-horse; therefore if Mrs. Oldfield would +chuse anybody else to play with her, he should be very glad to be +excus'd. This throwing the negative upon Mrs. Oldfield was, indeed, a +sure way to save himself; which I could not help taking notice of, by +saying it was making but an ill compliment to the company to suppose +there was but one man in it fit to play an ordinary part with her. + +"Here Mrs. Oldfield got up, and turning me half round to come forward, +said with her usual frankness, 'Pooh! you are all a parcel of fools, +to make such a rout about nothing!' Rightly judging that the person +most out of humour would not be more displeased at her calling us all +by the same name. As she knew, too, the best way of ending the debate +would be to help the weak, she said, she hop'd Mr. Wilks would not so +far mind what had past as to refuse his acting the part with her; for +tho' it might not be so good as he had been us'd to, yet she believed +those who had bespoke the play would expect to have it done to the +best advantage, and it would make but an odd story abroad if it were +known there had been any difficulty in that point among ourselves. To +conclude, Wilks had the part." + +Verily, Oldfield was a gentlewoman. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +"GRIEF À LA MODE" + + +"UNDERTAKER [_To his men_]. Well, come you that are to be mourners in +this house, put on your sad looks, and walk by me that I may sort you. +Ha, you! a little more upon the dismal; [_forming their countenances_] +this fellow has a good mortal look--place him near the corpse: that +wainscot face must be o' top of the stairs; that fellow's almost in a +fright (that looks as if he were full of some strange misery) at the +entrance to the hall. So--but I'll fix you all myself. Let's have no +laughing now on any provocation. [_Makes faces_.] Look yonder, that +hale, well-looking puppy! You ungrateful scoundrel, did not I pity +you, take you out of a great man's service, and shew you the pleasure +of receiving wages? Did not I give you ten, then fifteen, now twenty +shillings a week, to be sorrowful? and the more I give you, I think, +the gladder you are. + +"_Enter a_ BOY. + +"BOY. Sir, the grave-digger of St. Timothy's in the Fields would speak +with you. + +"UNDERTAKER. Let him come in. + +"_Enter_ GRAVE-DIGGER. + +"GRAVE-DIGGER. I carried home to your house the shroud the gentleman +was buried in last night; I could not get his ring off very easilly, +therefore I brought you the finger and all; and, sir, the sexton gives +his service to you, and desires to know whether you'd have any bodies +removed or not: if not, he'll let them be in their graves a week +longer. + +"UNDERTAKER. Give him my service; I can't tell readilly: but our +friend, Dr. Passeport, with the powder, has promised me six or seven +funerals this week." + + * * * * * + +These extracts are not from the manuscript of a modern +farce-comedy,[A] but belong to Steele's play of "The Funeral, or Grief +à la Mode." If they have about them all the air of _fin-de-siècle_ +wit, so much the more eloquently do they testify to the freshness +of Dick's satire. Freshness, satire, and death! Surely the three +ingredients seem unmixable; yet when poured into the crucible of +Steele's genius they resulted in a crystal that sparkled delightfully +amid the lights of a theatre--a crystal which might still shed +brilliancy if some enterprising manager would exhibit it to a jaded +public. + +[Footnote A: In "A Milk White Flag," a good specimen of "up-to-date" +farce, Mr. Hoyt dallies entertainingly and discreetly with the +blithesome topics of undertakers, corpses, and widows.] + +In "The Funeral" the author impaled, with many a merciless slash of +the pen, the hypocrisy and vulgar flummery that characterised the +whole gruesome ceremony of conducting to its earthly resting-place +the body of a well-to-do sinner. For the average Englishman loved a +funeral and all its ghastly accompaniments as passionately as though +he had Irish blood in his veins, and often insisted upon investing the +burial of his friends with the mockery, rather than the sincerity, of +woe. + +Grief thus became a pleasure, and it was a pleasure, be it added, +which was not taken too sadly. (Pardon the paradox.) The spirits of +the deceased's many admirers had to be raised, and the enlivening +process was set in motion by means of numerous libations, not of +tea, but of lusty wine. When the wife of mine host of the "Crown +and Sceptre" left this world of cooking and drinking, the women who +crowded to the good lady's funeral had to drown their sorrows in a tun +of red port,[A] and it is evident that at the burial of men the grief +of the mourners required an equal amount of quenching. Indeed, the +most absurd expenditures and preparations were made for what should be +the simplest of ceremonies, and the result oftentimes proved garish +in the extreme. As an example of the display in this direction, John +Ashton quotes from the _Daily Courant_ a report of the obsequies of +Sir William Pritchard, sometime Lord Mayor of London. After a +vast deal of pomp wasted in St. Albans and other places upon the +unappreciative and inanimate Pritchard, the remains reached the +country seat of the deceased, in the county of Buckingham. "Where, +after the body had been set out, with all ceremony befitting his +degree, for near two hours, 'twas carried to the church adjacent in +this order, viz., 2 conductors with long staves, 6 men in long cloaks +two and two, the standard, 18 men in cloaks as before, servants to +the deceas'd two and two, divines, the minister of the parish and the +preacher, the helm and crest, sword and target, gauntlets and spurs, +born by an officer of Arms, both in their rich coats of Her Majesty's +Arms enbroider'd; the body, between 6 persons of the Arms of Christ's +Hospital, St. Bartholomew's, Merchant Taylors Company, City of +London, empaled coat and single coat; the chief mourner and his four +assistants, followed by the relations of the defunct, &c."[B] In this +aggregation of grandeur the mere bagatelle in the shape of a corpse +seems almost completely overshadowed, and it is thus comforting to +reflect that the latter finally had interment in a "handsome large +vault, in the isle on the north side of the church, betwixt 7 and 8 of +the clock that evening." The dear departed, or grief for his memory, +frequently played but too small a rôle in all these trappings of +despondency, and the insignificance of the deceased might only be +likened to the secondary position of a man at his own wedding. It was +all fuss and mortuary feathers, mourning rings and mulled wine in the +one case, just as in the other it is entirely a show of bride and +blushes, flounces and femininity. [Footnote A: In writing of the +customs connected with old-time English funerals, Misson says: "The +relations and chief mourners are in a chamber apart, with their more +intimate friends; and the rest of the guests are dispersed in several +rooms about the house. When they are ready to set out, they nail +up the coffin, and a servant presents the company with sprigs of +rosemary: Every one takes a sprig and carries it in his hand till the +body is put into the grave, at which time they all throw their sprigs +in after it. Before they set out, and after they return, it is usual +to present the guests with something to drink, either red or white +wine, boil'd with sugar and cinnamon, or some such liquor. Butler, the +keeper of a tavern, told me there was a tun of red port drank at his +wife's burial, besides mull'd white wine. Note, no men ever go to +women's burials, nor the women to the men's; so that there were none +but women at the drinking of Butler's wine. Such women in England will +hold it out with the men, when they have a bottle before them, as well +as upon t'other occasion, and tattle infinitely better than they."] + +[Footnote B: The will of Benjamin Dod, a Roman Catholic citizen of +London (died 1714) runs in part as follows: "I desire four and twenty +persons to be at my burial ... to every of which four and twenty +persons ... I give a pair of white gloves, a ring of ten shillings +value, a bottle of wine at my funeral, and half a crown to be spent +at their return that night; to drink my soul's health, then on her +Journey for Purification in order to Eternal Rest. I appoint the room, +where my corpse shall lie, to be hung with black, and four and twenty +wax candles to be burning; on my coffin to be affixed a cross and this +inscription, _Jesus Hominum Salvator_. I also appoint my corpse to be +carried in a herse drawn with six white horses, with white feathers, +and followed by six coaches, with six horses to each coach, to carry +the four and twenty persons.... Item, I give to forty of my particular +acquaintance, not at my funeral, to every one of them a gold ring of +ten shillings value.... As for mourning, I leave that to my executors +hereafter nam'd; and I do not desire them to give any to whom I +shall leave a legacy.... I will have no Presbyterian, Moderate Low +Churchmen, or Occasional Conformists, to be at or have anything to do +with my funeral. I die in the Faith of the True Catholic Church. I +desire to have a tomb stone over me, with a Latin inscription, and +a lamp, or six wax candles, to burn seven days and nights +thereon."--_Vide_ ASHTON.] + +Was it any wonder that when Dick Steele, aetat twenty-six, an officer +of Fusiliers, and a merry vagabond, wanted to redeem his reputation by +writing a rollicking comedy, his thoughts turned to the satirising of +the British undertaker? For the young man must prove to the town that +he was not the hypocrite several of his kind friends had dubbed him. +The fact was, that he had been virtuous enough to write a pious work +entitled, "The Christian Hero," which he afterwards published, but +as he had not grown sufficiently master of himself to live up to its +golden precepts (nay, rather did he continue to spend his evenings in +the taverns), the author came in for many a taunt and sneer. Why did +he not practice what he preached? was the sarcastic query of his +intimates. + +Yet there was no thought of cant in what the soldier had done. His +design in issuing the "Christian Hero" was, as he explained in after +years, "principally to fix upon his own mind a strong impression of +virtue and religion, in opposition to a stronger propensity towards +unwarrantable pleasures." This secret admiration was too weak; he +therefore printed the book with his name, in hopes that a standing +testimony against himself, and the eyes of the world (that is to say, +of his acquaintances) upon him in a new light, would make him ashamed +of understanding and seeming to feel what was virtuous, and living so +contrary to life. + +But the man was weak where the author was willing, and thus gay +Richard went on "living so contrary a life" with true Celtic +perversity, and made of himself anything but a Christian Hero. +Rather was he a jolly Pagan, with a passion for his wine and his +coffee-house, and a kindly, merry word even for those who twitted him +upon his inconsistency. It was plain, therefore, that he must be some +other sort of hero, and so he evolved the brilliant satire of "The +Funeral," to "enliven his character, and repel the sarcasms of those +who abused him for his declarations relative to religion." + +[Illustration: SIR RICHARD STEELE + +By Sir GODFREY KNELLER] + +In the twinkling of an eye Steele became the spoiled darling of the +day. The comedy, which was produced at Drury Lane in 1702, was the +talk of the enthusiastic town, and the playwright arose from +his beer-mugs, his wine-flagons, and his contemplation of ideal +Christianity, to find himself famous. He had opened a new vein of +satire, and a vein moreover which upheld virtue and laughed to scorn +hypocrisy and vice. That was a moral which the dramatists of his epoch +seldom taught.[A] And so the people crowded to the theatre, applauded +the sentiment of the play, guffawed at the keen wit of the dialogue, +and swore that this young rascal Steele was the prince of bright +fellows. Then they went home--and revelled, as before, in the funerals +of their friends. + +[Footnote A: The "Funeral" is the merriest and most perfect of +Steele's comedies. The characters are strongly marked, the wit genial, +and not indecent. Steele was among the first who set about reforming +the licentiousness of the old comedy. His satire in the "Funeral" is +not against virtue, but vice and silliness.--DR. DORAN.] + +What of this remarkable comedy? Its story turned upon the marriage of +the elderly Lord Brumpton to a designing young minx who estranges the +nobleman from his son, Lord Hardy, the gentlemanly, poverty-stricken +leading man of the piece. When Brumpton has a cataleptic fit, and is +apparently dead as a doornail, the spouse confides his body to the +undertaker with feelings of serene pleasure. But let the lines of the +play, or a portion thereof, unfold the situation. + +The scene is at Lord Brumpton's house; the nobleman has just been +pronounced defunct, and Sable, the undertaker, has arrived. The +latter, who is being bantered by two of the characters, Mr. Campley +and Cabinet, is evidently a bit of a philosopher, albeit an uncanny +one, for he says: + + * * * * * + +"There are very few in the whole world that live to themselves, but +sacrifice their bosom-bliss to enjoy a vain show and appearance of +prosperity in the eyes of others; and there is often nothing more +inwardly distressed than a young bride in her glittering retinue, or +deeply joyful than a young widow in her weeds and black train; of both +which the lady of this house may be an instance, for she has been the +one, and is, I'll be sworn, the other. + +"CABINET. You talk, Mr. Sable, most learnedly. + +"SABLE. I have the deepest learning, sir, experience; remember your +widow cousin, that married last month. + +"CABINET. Ay, but how you'd you imagine she was in all that grief +an hypocrite! Could all those shrieks, those swoonings, that rising +falling bosom, be constrained? You're uncharitable, Sable, to believe +it. What colour, what reason had you for it? + +"SABLE. First, Sir, her carriage in her concerns with me, for I never +yet could meet with a sorrowful relict but was herself enough to +make a hard bargain with me. Yet I must confess they have frequent +interruptions of grief and sorrow when they read my bill; but as for +her, nothing she resolv'd, that look'd bright or joyous, should +after her love's death approach her. All her servants that were not +coal-black must turn out; a fair complexion made her eyes and heart +ake, she'd none but downright jet, and to exceed all example, she +hir'd my mourning furniture by the year, and in case of my mortality, +ty'd my son to the same article; so in six weeks time ran away with a +young fellow." + + * * * * * + +And so on (with a cynicism of which, of course, no modern "funeral +director" would be guilty--out loud), until the undertaker's men come +on the scene. + + * * * * * + +"Where in the name of goodness have you all been?" asks SABLE. "Have +you brought the sawdust and tar for embalming? Have you the hangings +and the sixpenny nails, and my lord's coat of arms?" + +"SERVANT. Yes, sir, and had come sooner, but I went to the herald's +for a coat for Alderman Gathergrease that died last night--he has +promised to invent one against to-morrow." + +"SABLE. Ah! pox take some of our cits, the first thing after their +death is to take care of their birth--let him bear a pair of +stockings, he is the first of his family that ever wore one.... And +you, Mr. Blockhead, I warrant you have not call'd at Mr. Pestle's the +apothecary: will that fellow never pay me? I stand bound for all the +poison in that starving murderer's shop: he serves me just as Dr. +Quibus did, who promised to write a treatise against water-gruel, a +healthy slop that has done me more injury than all the Faculty: look +you now, you are all upon the sneer, let me have none but downright +stupid countenances. I've a good mind to turn you all off, and take +people out of the playhouse; but hang them, they are as ignorant of +their parts as you are of yours.... Ye stupid rogues, whom I have +picked out of the rubbish of mankind, and fed for your eminent +worthlessness, attend, and know that I speak you this moment stiff and +immutable to all sense of noise, mirth or laughter. [_Makes mouths at +them as they pass by him to bring them to a constant countenance_.] +So, they are pretty well--pretty well." + +[_Exit_. + + * * * * * + +When the stage is clear Lord Brumpton and his servant Trusty enter. +The former has wakened from his cataleptic trance, as the faithful +Trusty watched beside him, and is horrified to learn of Lady +Brumpton's lack of grief. But hush; he will conceal himself, for +here comes my lady, accompanied by her woman and confidant, Mistress +Tattleaid. + + * * * * * + +"_Enter_ WIDOW _and_ TATTLEAID, _meeting and running to each other_. + +"WIDOW. Oh, Tattleaid, his and our hour has come! + +"TAT. I always said by his church yard cough, you'd bury him, and +still you were impatient. + +"WIDOW. Nay, thou hast ever been my comfort, my confident, my friend, +and my servant; and now I'll reward thy pains; for tho' I scorn the +whole sex of fellows I'll give them hopes for thy sake; every smile, +every frown, every gesture, humour, caprice and whimsy of mine shall +be gold to thee, girl; thou shalt feel all the sweets and wealth of +being a fine rich widow's woman. Oh! how my head runs my first year +out, and jumps to all the joys of widowhood! If thirteen months hence +a friend should haul one to a play one has a mind to see,[A] what +pleasure t'will be when my Lady Brumpton's footman called (who kept +a place for that very purpose) to make a sudden insurrection of fine +wigs in the pit and side-boxes. Then, with a pretty sorrow in one's +face, and a willing blush for being stared at, one ventures to look +round, and bow to one of one's own quality. Thus [_very directly_] to +a snug pretending fellow of no fortune. Thus [_as scarce seeing him_] +to one that writes lampoons. Thus [_fearfully_] to one who really +loves. Thus [_looking down_] to one woman-acquaintance, from box to +box, thus [_with looks differently familiar_], and when one has done +one's part, observe the actors do theirs, but with my mind fixed not +on those I look at, but those that look at me. Then the serenades--the +lovers! [A query--if the theatres were patronised only by those who +looked solely at the stage, what would be the size of the audiences?] + +[Footnote A: A well-regulated widow kept herself at home for six weeks +after the death of her husband, and denied herself the theatre and +other public amusements for a twelvemonth.] + +"TAT. Oh, madam, you make my heart bound within me: I'll warrant you, +madam, I'll manage them all; and indeed, madam, the men are really +very silly creatures, 'tis no such hard matter--they rulers! they +governors! I warrant you indeed. + +"WIDOW. Ay, Tattleaid, they imagine themselves mighty things, but +government founded on force only, is a brutal power--we rule them by +their affections, which blinds them into belief that they rule us, or +at least are in the government with us. But in this nation our power +is absolute; thus, thus, we sway--[_playing her fan_]. A fan is both +the standard and the flag of England. I laugh to see men go on our +errands, strut in great offices, live in cares, hazards and scandals, +to come home and be fools to us in brags of their dispatches, +negotiations, and their wisdoms--as my good dear deceas'd use to +entertain me; which I, to relieve myself from, would lisp some silly +request, pat him on the face. He shakes his head at my pretty folly, +calls me simpleton; gives me a jewel, then goes to bed so wise, so +satisfied, and so deceived." + + * * * * * + +This pleasant conversation Lord Brumpton overhears, as he does also +the inmost secrets of his lawyer, Puzzle. The latter gentleman, who +has studied hard to cheat his good-natured employer, and succeeded, is +a daringly drawn satire on the pettifogging attorney of the period.[A] +Note the following words of wisdom, _àpropos_ to the drawing of wills, +which Mr. Puzzle addresses to his nephew. + +[Footnote A: Of the attorney of Queen Anne's day Ward wrote: "He's an +Amphibious Monster, that partakes of two Natures, and those contrary; +He's a great Lover both of Peace and Enmity; and has no sooner set +People together by the Ears, but is Soliciting the Law to make an end +of the Difference. His Learning is commonly as little as his Honesty; +and his Conscience much larger than his Green Bag. Catch him in what +Company soever, you will always hear him stating of Cases, or telling +what notice my Lord Chancellor took of him, when he beg'd leave to +supply the deficiency of his Counsel. He always talks with as great +assurance as if he understood what he only pretends to know: And +always wears a Band, and in that lies his Gravity and Wisdom. He +concerns himself with no Justice but the Justice of a Cause: and for +making an unconscionable Bill he outdoes a Taylor."] + +"PUZZLE. As for legacies, they are good or not, as I please; for let +me tell you, a man must take pen, ink and paper, sit down by an old +fellow, and pretend to take directions, but a true lawyer never makes +any man's will but his own; and as the priest of old among us got near +the dying man, and gave all to the Church, so now the lawyer gives all +to the law. + +"CLERK. Ay, sir, but priests then cheated the nation by doing their +offices in an unknown language. + +"PUZZLE. True, but ours is a way much surer; for we cheat in no +language at all, but loll in our own coaches, eloquent in gibberish, +and learned in jingle. Pull out the parchment [_referring to the will +of_ LORD BRUMPTON], there's the deed; I made it as long as I could. +Well, I hope to see the day when the indenture shall be the exact +measure of the land that passes by it; for 'tis a discouragement to +the gown, that every ignorant rogue of an heir should in a word or +two understand his father's meaning, and hold ten acres of land by +half-an-acre of parchment. Nay, I hope to see the time when that there +is indeed some progress made in, shall be wholly affected; and by the +improvement of the noble art of tautology, every Inn in Holborn an Inn +of Court. Let others think of logic, rhetoric, and I know not what +impertinence, but mind thou tautology. What's the first excellence in +a lawyer? Tautology. What's the second? Tautology. What's the third? +Tautology; as an old pleader said of action." + + * * * * * + +Who shall say that the tautological sentiments of Mr. Puzzle are not +still inculcated? Nay, the whole play furnishes a capital instance of +the truism that the world changes but little, and, furthermore, that +the mould of nigh two centuries cannot spoil the wit of sparkling +Steele. Ah, Dick! Dick! you may have been a sorry dog, with your +toasts and your taverns, yet 'tis a thousand pities that a few +dramatists of to-day cannot drink inspiration from the same cups. + +To continue our cheerful journey with this unusual "Funeral," we soon +find ourselves introduced to Lord Hardy, the unjustly discarded son of +Brumpton. Hardy is a high-spirited, honest man of quality, a trifle +out at elbows just now, owing to the stoppage of financial supplies +from the paternal mansion. His straits are oft severe, and it is +fortunate that he has in Trim a faithful servant who knows so well how +to keep the duns at bay. "Why, friend, says I [Trim is describing to +Hardy his method of dealing with his lordship's creditors], how often +must I tell you my lord is not stirring. His lordship has not slept +well, you must come some other time; your lordship will send for him +when you are at leisure to look upon money affairs; or if they are so +saucy, so impertinent as to press a man of your quality for their +own, there are canes, there's Bridewel, there's the stocks for your +ordinary tradesmen; but to an haughty, thriving Covent Garden mercer, +silk or laceman, your lordship gives your most humble service to him, +hopes his wife is well; you have letters to write, or you would see +him yourself, but you desire he would be with you punctually on such +a day, that is to say, the day after you are gone out of town, Which +shows very plainly that Trim could have earned large wages had he +lived in the nineteenth century. These 'Palmy Days' are not long +enough, however, to permit the introduction of all the characters, nor +the outlining of the entire story, with its brisk love-interest. But +this bit of dialogue, which occurs after Sable has discovered the +much-alive Lord Brumpton, is too good to be ignored: + +"SABLE. Why, my lord, you can't in conscience put me off so; I must do +according to my orders, cut you up, and embalm you, except you'll come +down a little deeper than you talk of; you don't consider the charges +I have been at already. + +"LORD BRUMPTON. Charges! for what? + +"SABLE. First, twenty guineas to my lady's woman for notice of your +death (a fee I've before now known the widow herself go halves in), +but no matter for that--in the next place, ten pounds for watching you +all your long fit of sickness last winter-- + +"LORD BRUMPTON. Watching me? Why I had none but my own servants by +turns! + +"SABLE. I mean attending to give notice of your death. I had all your +long fit of sickness, last winter, at half a crown a day, a fellow +waiting at your gate to bring me intelligence, but you unfortunately +recovered, and I lost all my obliging pains for your service. + +"LORD BRUMPTON. Ha! ha! ha! Sable, thou'rt a very impudent fellow. Half +a crown a day to attend my decease, and dost thou reckon it to me?" + +"SABLE.... I have a book at home, which I call my doomsday-book, where +I have every man of quality's age and distemper in town, and know +when you should drop. Nay, my lord, if you had reflected upon your +mortality half so much as poor I have for you, you would not desire to +return to life thus--in short, I cannot keep this a secret, under the +whole money I am to have for burying you." + + * * * * * + +Of course Lady Brumpton is discomfited and disgraced at the end of +the play, and, of course, Lord Brumpton is reconciled to his son--for +Steele took care that virtue should be rewarded and the moral code +otherwise preserved. As to her ladyship, who has proved a very +entertaining sort of villain, we shall take leave of her in one of the +best scenes of the comedy: + +"WIDOW. _[Reading the names of the visitors who have called to leave +their condolences]_ Mrs. Frances and Mrs. Winnifred Glebe, who are +they?" + +"TATTLEAID. They are the country great fortunes, have been out of town +this whole year; they are those whom your ladyship said upon being +very well-born took upon them to be very ill-bred." + +"WIDOW. Did I say so? Really I think it was apt enough; now I remember +them. Lady Wrinkle--oh, that smug old woman! there is no enduring +her affectation of youth; but I plague her; I always ask whether her +daughter in Wiltshire has a grandchild yet or not. Lady Worth--I can't +bear her company; [_aside_] she has so much of that virtue in her +heart which I have in mouth only. Mrs. After-day--Oh, that's she that +was the great beauty, the mighty toast about town, that's just come +out of the small-pox; she is horribly pitted they say; I long to see +her, and plague her with my condolence.... But you are sure these +other ladies suspect not in the least that I know of their coming? + +"TAT. No, dear madam, they are to ask for me. + +"WIDOW. I hear a coach. [_Exit_ TATTLEAID.] I have now an exquisite +pleasure in the thought of surpassing my Lady Sly, who pretends to +have out-grieved the whole town for her husband. They are certainly +coming. Oh, no! here let me--thus let me sit and think. [_Widow on +her couch; while she is raving, as to herself_, TATTLEAID _softly +introduces the ladies_.] Wretched, disconsolate, as I am!... Alas! +alas! Oh! oh! I swoon! I expire! [_Faints_. + +"SECOND LADY. Pray, Mrs. Tattleaid, bring something that is cordial to +her. [_Exit_ TATTLEAID. + +"THIRD LADY. Indeed, madam, you should have patience; his lordship was +old. To die is but going before in a journey we must all take. + +_Enter_ TATTLEAID, _loaded with bottles_; THIRD LADY _takes a bottle +from her and drinks_. + +"FOURTH LADY. Lord, how my Lady Fleer drinks! I have heard, indeed, +but never could believe it of her. [_Drinks also_. + +"FIRST LADY. [_Whispers_.] But, madam, don't you hear what the town +says of the jilt, Flirt, the men liked so much in the Park? Hark +ye--was seen with him in a hackney coach. + +"SECOND LADY. Impudent flirt, to be found out! + +"THIRD LADY. But I speak it only to you. + +"FOURTH LADY. [_Whispers next woman_.] Nor I, but to no one. + +"FIFTH LADY. [_Whispers the_ WIDOW.] I can't believe it; nay, I always +thought it, madam. + +"WIDOW. Sure, 'tis impossible the demure, prim thing. Sure all the +world is hypocrisy Well, I thank my stars, whatsoever sufferings I +have, I have none in reputation. I wonder at the men; I could never +think her handsome. She has really a good shape and complexion but no +mein; and no woman has the use of her beauty without mein. Her charms +are dumb, they want utterance. But whither does distraction lead me to +talk of charms? + +"FIRST LADY. Charms, a chit's, a girl's charms! Come, let us widows be +true to ourselves, keep our countenances and our characters, and a fig +for the maids. + +"SECOND LADY. Ay, since they will set up for our knowledge, why should +not we for their ignorance? + +"THIRD LADY. But, madam, o' Sunday morning at church, I curtsied to +you and looked at a great fuss in a glaring light dress, next pew. +That strong, masculine thing is a knight's wife, pretends to all the +tenderness in the world, and would fain put the unwieldly upon us for +the soft, the languid. She has of a sudden left her dairy, and sets up +for a fine town lady; calls her maid Cisly, her woman speaks to her by +her surname of Mrs. Cherryfist, and her great foot-boy of nineteen, +big enough for a trooper, is stripped into a laced coat, now Mr. Page +forsooth. + +"FOURTH LADY. Oh, I have seen her. Well, I heartily pity some people +for their wealth; they might have been unknown else--you would die, +madam, to see her and her equipage: I thought her horses were ashamed +of their finery; they dragged on, as if they were all at plough, and +a great bashful-look'd booby behind grasp'd the coach, as if he had +never held one. + +"FIFTH LADY. Alas! some people think there is nothing but being fine +to be genteel; but the high prance of the horses, and the brisk +insolence of the servants in an equipage of quality are inimitable. + +"FIRST LADY. Now you talk of an equipage, I envy this lady the beauty +she will appear in a mourning coach, it will so become her complexion; +I confess I myself mourned for two years for no other reason. Take up +that hood there. Oh, that fair face with a veil! [_They take up her +hood_. + +"WIDOW. Fie, fie, ladies. But I have been told, indeed, black does +become-- + +"SECOND LADY. Well, I'll take the liberty to speak it, there is young +Nutbrain has long had (I'll be sworn) a passion for this lady; but +I'll tell you one thing I fear she'll dislike, that is, he is younger +than she is. + +"THIRD LADY. No, that's no exception; but I'll tell you one, he is +younger than his brother. + +"WIDOW. Talk not of such affairs. Who could love such an unhappy +relict as I am? But, dear madam, what grounds have you for that idle +story? + +"FOURTH LADY. Why he toasts you and trembles where you are spoke of. +It must be a match. + +"WIDOW. Nay, nay, you rally, you rally; but I know you mean it kindly. + +"FIRST LADY. I swear we do. + +[TATTLEAID _whispers the_ WIDOW. + +"WIDOW. But I must beseech you, ladies, since you have been so +compassionate as to visit and accompany my sorrow, to give me the only +comfort I can now know, to see my friends cheerful, and to honour an +entertainment Tattleaid has prepared within for you. If I can find +strength enough I'll attend you; but I wish you would excuse me, for +I have no relish of food or joy, but will try to get a bit down in my +own chamber. + +"FIRST LADY. There is no pleasure without you. + +"WIDOW. But, madam, I must beg of your ladyship not to be so importune +to my fresh calamity as to mention Nutbrain any more. I am sure there +is nothing in it. In love with me, quotha!" + +[WIDOW _is led away. Exeunt_ LADIES. + +Thus runs the comedy, trippingly as the tongue of a gay _raconteur_. +Sometimes the scenes are exaggerated, sometimes the characters may be +overdrawn, but the satire is true, and the wit is of the best. +Take, for instance, the picture reproduced above. Are not its +colours--albeit bold and merciless--tinged with the redeeming hue +of naturalness? And of you, fair daughters of Eve (if any of you +condescend to read these pages), let the author ask one impertinent +little question: Is there not something in the conversation of Dick +Steele's First Lady, or his Second Lady, or all the other Ladies, +which suggests the charity and intellectuality that doth hedge in an +afternoon tea? + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE BARTON BOOTHS + + + "Sweet are the charms of her I love, + More fragrant than the damask rose; + Soft as the down of turtle-dove, + Gentle as winds when zephyr blows; + Refreshing as descending rains, + On sun-burnt climes, and thirsty plains." + +Thus rhapsodised the great Barton Booth, who could write harmless +poetry when the cares of acting did not press too hard upon him. In +this case the verses were addressed to the object of his passion, a +lady who seems to have been, at first, a trifle parsimonious in her +smiles; for, in another song intended for the same siren, the lover +asks: + + "Can then a look create a thought + Which time can ne'er remove? + Yes, foolish heart, again thou'rt caught, + Again thou bleed'st for Love. + + "She sees the conquest of her eyes, + Nor heals the wounds she gave; + She smiles when'er my blushes rise, + And, sighing, shuns her Slave. + + "Then, Swain, be bold! and still adore her + Still the flying fair pursue: + Love, and friendship, still implore her, + Pleading night and day for you." + +[Illustration: BARTON BOOTH] + +Who was this "flying fair" that the swain pursued with such despairing +fervour? Nance Oldfield? Nay, there was no romance there, for while +Booth could make the most exquisite stage love to the actress, he +never carried that love beyond the mimic world. Rather was it the +lovely Mistress Santlow, that dancing bit of sunshine, who turned the +heads of many an amorous spectator, and had enough of the temptress +about her to lead a mighty warrior from the path of domestic +constancy, and bring a Secretary of State almost to the verge of +matrimony.[A] She seemed the apotheosis of grace, did this merry, +moving Hester, and when she forsook the art she so delightfully +adorned, and took to the "legitimate," there were not a few among her +admirers who regretted the change. "They mourned," says Dr. Doran, "as +if Terpsichore herself had been on earth to charm mankind, and had +gone never to return. They remembered, longed for, and now longed in +vain for that sight which used to set a whole audience half distraught +with delight, when in the very ecstacy of her dance, Santlow contrived +to loosen her clustering auburn hair, and letting it fall about such +a neck and shoulders as Praxiteles could more readily imagine than +imitate, danced on, the locks flying in the air, and half-a-dozen +hearts at the end of every one of them." + +[Footnote A: The Duke of Marlborough and Secretary Craggs +respectively.] + +At the end of one of those locks was the throbbing heart of Barton +Booth, which he had completely lost in watching the auburn hair and +the poetic movements of the _coryphée:_ + + "But now the flying fingers strike the lyre, + The sprightly notes the nymph inspire. + She whirls around! she bounds! she springs! + As if Jove's messenger had lent her wings. + + "Such were her lovely limbs, so flushed her charming face + So round her neck! her eyes so fair! + So rose her swelling chest! so flow'd her amber hair! + While her swift feet outstript the wind, + And left the enamor'd God of Day behind." + +Certes, Booth was in love when he wrote this eulogy. + +But however sprightly and deftly did this charmer pirouette, she could +not deny herself the luxury of appearing as a regular actress. Her +first venture in this direction was as the Eunuch of "Valentinian," +wherein she donned boy's attire, and was much more successful in +masculine garb than have been not a few better artists. From this +part to that of Dorcas Zeal in Shadwell's play, "The Fair Quaker of +Deal,"[A] was but a step, and a step, be it said, which for the moment +consoled the public for her desertion from the ballet. According to +Cibber, Santlow was the happiest incident in the fortune of the play, +and the Laureate tells us that she was "then in the full bloom of what +beauty she might pretend to."[B] He adds that "before this she had +only been admired as the most excellent dancer, which perhaps might +not a little contribute to the favourable reception she now met with +as an actress in this character which so happily suited her figure and +capacity: the gentle softness of her voice, the composed innocence +of her aspect, the modesty of her dress, the reserv'd deceny of her +gesture, and the simplicity of the sentiments that naturally fell from +her, made her seem the amiable maid she represented. In a word, not +the enthusiastick Maid of Orleans was more serviceable of old to the +French army when the English had distressed them, than this fair +Quaker was at the head of that dramatick attempt upon which the +support of their weak society depended." + +[Footnote A: Produced at Drury Lane in February, 1710.] + +[Footnote B: It might appear from this remark of Colley's that the +Santlow was not over handsome. Yet if a picture taken from life does +not belie her the dancer was most fair to look upon.] + +This "weak society" was the new company recruited by William Collier +for Drury Lane Theatre, and wherein could be found, in addition to the +light-limbed Hester, such players as her adoring swain, Barton Booth, +Theophilus Keen, George Powell, Francis Leigh, Mrs. Bradshaw and Mrs. +Knight. Colley was at that time (1710) in opposition to Drury, his +interest lying with the Hay market management, and it is very evident +that the success of the "Fair Quaker"--a success made in face of the +counter attraction furnished by the long trial of Dr. Sacheverel--went +sorely against the grain with him.[A] The fact was that things at the +Hay market were not flourishing, and the prosperity enjoyed by the +Drury Lane comedy--and the Sacheverel show--seemed tantalising to +bear. + +[Footnote A: Shadwell evidently had Cibber in mind when he wrote in +the preface to the "Fair Quaker of Deal": "This play was written +about three years since, and put into the hands of a famous comedian +belonging to the Haymarket Playhouse, who took care to beat down the +value of it so much as to offer the author to alter it fit to appear +on the stage, on condition he might have half the profits of the third +day; that is as much as to say, that it may pass for one of his, +according to custom. The author not agreeing to this reasonable +proposal, it lay in his hands till the beginning of this winter, when +Mr. Booth read it, and liked it, and persuaded the author that, with a +little alteration, it would please the town."] + +Even in after years Colley grew bitter in thinking of the "Fair +Quaker," and could not help indulging in a dig at its expense when +he came to write the "Apology." He likewise paid his satirical +compliments to the new-fangled Italian opera which was given at the +Haymarket during the season of 1709-10, on the days when the regular +dramatic company did not appear. The opera had already proved a +drawing attraction, but at the time here mentioned the popular +interest in the performances had fallen off, and the dear and ever +fickle public, of high and low degree, prefered either Drury Lane or +the trial of Sacheverel to the artistic delights of music and the +drama at the rival house. And so Cibber plaintively sighs. + +"The truth is, that this kind of entertainment [opera] being so +entirely sensual, it had no possibility of getting the better of our +reason but by its novelty; and that novelty could never be supported +but by an annual change of the best voices, which, like the finest +flowers, bloom but for a season, and when that is over are only dead +nosegays. From this natural cause we have seen within these two years +even Farinelli singing to an audience of five and thirty pounds, and +yet, if common fame may be credited, the same voice, so neglected in +one country, has in another had charms sufficient to make that crown +sit easy on the head of a Monarch, which the jealousy of politicians +(who had their views in his keeping it) fear'd, without some such +extraordinary amusement, his Satiety of Empire might tempt him a +second time to resign."[A] + +[Footnote A: The monarch alluded to was evidently Victor Amadeus, King +of Sardinia. The tenor Farinelli (whose real name was Carlo Broschi) +was born in the dukedom of Modena in 1705, and died 1782.] + +That Cibber knew something of the wrangles which inevitably follow in +the wake of an operatic troupe may be seen from the next paragraph: + +"There is, too, in the very species of an Italian singer such an +innate, fantastical pride and caprice, that the government of them +(here at least) is almost impracticable. This distemper, as we were +not sufficiently warn'd or apprized of, threw our musical affairs into +perplexities we knew not easily how to get out of. There is scarce +a sensible auditor in the Kingdom that has not since that time had +occasion to laugh at the several instances of it. But what is still +more ridiculous, these costly canary birds have sometimes infested the +whole body of our dignified lovers of musick with the same childish +animosities." + +It was merely an illustration of the melancholy fact that the heavenly +maid of music is too often attended by the handmaiden of discord. But +to continue: + +"Ladies have been known," says Colley, "to decline their visits upon +account of their being of a different musical party. Caesar and Pompey +made not a warmer division in the Roman Republick than those heroines, +their country women, the Faustina and Cuzzoni, blew up in our +commonwealth of academical musick by their implacable pretentions to +superiority.[A] And while this greatness of soul is their unalterable +virtue, it will never be practicable to make two capital singers of +the same sex do as they should do in one opera at the same time! No, +tho' England were to double the sums it has already thrown after them. +For even in their own country, where an extraordinary occasion has +called a greater number of their best to sing together, the mischief +they have made has been proportionable; an instance of which, if I am +rightly informed, happen'd at Parma, where upon the celebration of +the marriage of that Duke, a collection was made of the most eminent +voices that expence or interest could purchase, to give as complete an +opera as the whole vocal power of Italy could form. + +[Footnote A: Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni Hasse, whose +famous rivalry in 1726 and 1727 is here referred to, were singers +of remarkable powers. Cuzzoni's voice was a soprano, her rival's a +mezzo-soprana, and while the latter excelled in brilliant execution, +the former was supreme in pathetic expression. Dr. Burney("History of +Music," iv. 319) quotes from M. Quanta the statement that so keen was +their supporter's party spirit, that when one party began to applaude +their favourite, the other party hissed!--R.W. LOWE, "Notes to the +Apology."] + +"But when it came to the proof of this musical project, behold! what +woful work they made of it! every performer would be a Caesar or +Nothing; their several pretentions to preference were not to be +limited within the laws of harmony; they would all choose their own +songs, but not more to set off themselves than to oppose or deprive +another of an occasion to shine. Yet any one would sing a bad song, +provided nobody else had a good one, till at last they were thrown +together like so many feather'd warriors, for a battle-royal in a +cock-pit, where every one was oblig'd to kill another to save himself! +What pity it was these froward misses and masters of musick had not +been engag'd to entertain the court of some King of Morocco, that +could have known a good opera from a bad one! With how much ease would +such a director have brought them to better order? But alas! as it has +been said of greater things, + + "'Suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit.' + +"Imperial Rome fell by the too great strength of its own citizens! So +fell this mighty opera, ruin'd by the too great excellency of its +singers! For, upon the whole, it proved to be as barbarously bad as if +Malice itself had composed it." + +It was a pity, no doubt, that the light of opera shone but dimly at +the Haymarket, yet the ill wind which almost extinguished that light +blew a blessing towards the nimble Santlow. For the dear creature +prospered exceeding well as Dorcas Zeal; the heart of the public waxed +warm toward the ex-dancer, and so did the cardiac organ of Barton +Booth. A few years later Booth married the charmer, and she, having +become virtuous and prim, made the remainder of his life a bed of +domestic roses. + +And now for the brief story of Booth's dignified career. Barton came +of good English stock, and his father, with a true British desire to +rule the destinies of his family, mapped out a clerical life for the +boy. But the latter had no thought of the pulpit, and from the time +that he acted in the "Andria" of Terence, at Westminster School, his +hope was all for the stage. 'Tis very easy to applaud that hope now; +perhaps his relations looked upon it as a temptation offered by the +Evil One. When he reached the mature age of seventeen, and had orders +to begin his university training, what does the youth do but run away +from home, and, taking the theatrical bull by the horns, appear on the +Dublin boards. + +"He first apply'd to Mr. Betterton, then to Mr. Smith, two celebrated +actors," says Chetwood, "but they decently refused him for fear of the +resentment of his family. But this did not prevent his pursuing the +point in view; therefore he resolv'd for Ireland, and safely arrived +in June 1698. His first rudiments Mr. Ashbury[A] taught him, and his +first appearance was in the part of Oroonoko, where he acquitted +himself so well to a crowded audience, that Mr. Ashbury rewarded him +with a present of five guineas, which was the more acceptable as his +last shilling was reduced to brass (as he inform'd me). But an odd +accident fell out upon this occasion. It being very warm weather, in +his last scene of the play, as he waited to go on, he inadvertently +wiped his face, that, when he enter'd, he had the appearance of a +chimney-sweeper (his own words). At his entrance he was surprised at +the variety of noises he heard in the audience (for he knew not what +he had done), that a little confounded him, till he received an +extraordinary clap of applause, which settled his mind. The play was +desir'd for the next night of acting, when an actress fitted a crape +to his face, with an opening proper for the mouth, and shap'd in form +for the nose; but, in the first scene, one part of the crape slip'd +off. 'And zounds!' said he (he was a little apt to swear), 'I look'd +like a magpie. When I came off, they lamp-black'd me for the rest of +the night, that I was flayed before it could be got off again.'"[B] + +[Footnote A: Joseph Ashbury, Master of the Revels, in Ireland, actor, +and manager of the theatre in Dublin.] + +[Footnote B: Chetwood adds in a footnote: "The composition for +blackening the face are ivory-black and pomatum, which is, with some +pains, clean'd with fresh butter." "Oroonoko" was what we would now +call a "black face" part.] + +But Booth was too much in earnest to be daunted by anything so +trifling as the misplacing of a mask. He studied hard, despite a +youthful liking for the jolly joys of Bacchus, and soon made for +himself an enviable position upon the Dublin stage. For the youth had +all the qualities that went toward the formation of a fine actor; he +possessed keen dramatic instinct, poetic sensibility, a beautiful +voice, a handsome person, and, above all, a dogged ambition. In after +years, when his health began to fail and the sweets of success had, +perhaps, become a trifle cloying, the tragedian often went through +a part in a perfunctory manner.[A] But those early days in Ireland +marked the sunrise of his genius--a time no less noble, in its +freshness and promise, than the later glory of the noontide--and there +was in his performance nothing but youthful ardour and devotion. + +[Footnote A: He (Booth) would play his best to a single man in the pit +whom he recognised as a playgoer, and a judge of acting; but to an +unappreciating audience he could exhibit an almost contemptuous +disinclination to exert himself. On one occasion of this sort he was +made painfully sensible of his mistake and a note was addressed to him +from the stage-box, the purport of which was to know whether he +was acting for his own diversion or in the service and for the +entertainment of the public? On another occasion, with a thin house +and a cold audience, he was languidly going through one of his usually +grandest impersonations, namely, Pyrrhus. At his very dullest scene he +started into the utmost brilliancy and effectiveness. His eye had just +previously detected in the pit a gentleman, named Stanyan, the +friend of Addison and Steele, and the correspondent of the Earl of +Manchester. Stanyan was an accomplished man and a judicious critic. +Booth played to him, with the utmost care and corresponding success. +"No, no!" he exclaimed, as he passed behind the scenes, "I will not +have it said at Button's that Barton Booth is losing his powers!"--DR. +DORAN.] + +With that ardour, only whetted by his popularity in Dublin, Barton +travelled to London (1701), and there offered respectful incense at +the shrine of Betterton. 'Twas a shrine at which the public still +worshipped; and when Roscius extended a helping hand to the kneeling +postulant, and brought him before the patrons of Lincoln's Inn Fields, +the success of Booth seemed assured. The latter never forgot the +generosity and kindly interest of his idol, and he spoke with all the +sincerity of gratitude when he once said: "When I acted the Ghost with +Betterton (as Hamlet), instead of my awing him, he terrified me. But +divinity hung round that man." Had he been of an egotistic mould +Barton might have added, that his Ghost was considered hardly less +effective than the Hamlet of the mighty Betterton. + +For a decade, or longer, Booth went on this prosperous way, gaining in +favour with the theatre-goers, and increasing his artistic resources. +During this period he married the daughter of a baronet, and she lived +for six years, but not long enough to witness his triumphs in the +"Distressed Mother" and the classic "Cato." As Chetwood well said, +"Pyrrhus in the 'Distressed Mother' placed him in the seat of Tragedy, +and Cato fixed him there." We have already read something of the +"Distressed Mother," and of the production of Addison's tragedy, and +so there is no need to linger over the episodes which caused Booth to +be acclaimed Betterton's logical successor. + +We remember, likewise, that the original Cato was admitted to a share +in the management of Drury Lane, as a result of the increased fame +accruing from his impersonation of the grand old Roman. It was an +incident, into which politics entered not a little; there were wires +to pull, and Lord Bolingbroke had his hand in the theatrical pie. "To +reward his merit," chronicles Chetwood, "he (Booth) was joined in +the patent, tho' great interest was made against him by the other +patentees, who, to prevent his soliciting his patrons at Court, +then at Windsor, gave out plays every night, where Mr. Booth had a +principal part. Notwithstanding this step, he had a chariot and six of +a nobleman's waiting for him at the end of every play, that whipt him +the twenty miles in three hours, and brought him back to the business +of the theatre the next night." + +"He told me," adds the writer, "not one nobleman in the Kingdom had so +many sets of horses at command as he had at that time, having no less +than eight; the first set carrying him to Hounslow from London, ten +miles; and the next set, ready waiting with another chariot to +carry him to Windsor." Evidently the inspired Barton, with all his +high-flown talent, had an eye for the main chance. In this respect he +resembled one greater than he--David Garrick. + +Like Garrick, too, the enterprising Booth had his Peg Woffington, in +the pretty person of Susan Mountford, a daughter of the great Mistress +Verbruggen. He never placed a wedding-ring upon a finger of this young +woman, but he gave her his protection after the death of the baronet's +daughter, and continued to do so until the fragile creature ran off +with a craven fellow named Minshull. This Minshull made away with over +£3000, the sum of Susan's savings,[A] and the erring woman, alike +false to her virtue and the destroyer of that virtue, ended her +darkening days amid the clouds of insanity. + +[Footnote A: In the year 1714, they (Booth and Susan) bought several +tickets in the State Lottery, and agreed to share equally whatever +fortune might ensue. Booth gained nothing; the lady won a prize of +5000 pounds, and kept it. His friends counselled him to claim half the +sum, but he laughingly remarked that there had never been any but +a verbal agreement on the matter; and since the result had been +fortunate for his friend, she should enjoy it all.--Dr. DORAN.] + +The picture is far prettier with Hester Santlow leaping into the +affections of the actor, and finally marrying him according to the law +of the land. She loved the great man tenderly, ministered to his wants +with a wifely devotion which would hardly suit the "New Woman," and +when he was wont to eat too much (for he had given up the flowing +bowl[A] and must cultivate some other species of gluttony), the +ex-dancer would have the dinner-table removed. + +[Footnote A: Booth told Cibber that he "had been for sometime too +frank a lover of the bottle; but having had the happiness to observe +into what contempt and distress Powel had plung'd himself by the same +vice, he was so struck with the terror of his example, that he fix'd +a resolution (which from that time to the end of his days he strictly +observed) of utterly reforming it." And Colley adds; "An uncommon act +of philosophy in a young man!"] + +Strange, is it not, that the wife who could be so full of constancy, +and all the other virtues, previously lived a notoriously loose +existence? For it had been the fate of Santlow to stand continually in +the glare of that fierce light which beats upon the stage, and +never, perhaps, did she give the town more to talk about than by her +celebrated _rencontre_ with Captain Montague. The story affords a +glimpse of the free-and-easy manners which sometimes prevailed in +theatres, and will bear the telling, ere we bid farewell to its fair +heroine. + +"About the year 1717," writes Cibber, "a young actress of a desirable +person (Santlow), sitting in an upper box at the Opera, a military +gentleman (Montague) thought this a proper opportunity to secure a +little conversation with her, the particulars of which were probably +no more worth repeating than it seems the Damoiselle then thought them +worth listening to; for, notwithstanding the fine things he said +to her, she rather chose to give the Musick the preference of her +attention. This indifference was so offensive to his high heart, +that he began to change the Tender into the Terrible, and, in short, +proceeded at last to treat her in a style too grossly insulting for +the meanest female ear to endur unresented. Upon which, being beaten +too far out of her discretion, she turn'd hastily upon him with an +angry look and a reply which seem'd to set his merit in so low a +regard, that he thought himself oblig'd in honour to take his time to +resent it. + +"This was the full extent of her crime, which his glory delay'd no +longer to punish than 'till the next time she was to appear upon the +stage. There, in one of her best parts, wherein she drew a favourable +regard and approbation from the audience, he, dispensing with the +respect which some people think due to a polite assembly, began to +interrupt her performance with such loud and various notes of mockery, +as other young men of honour in the same place had sometimes made +themselves undauntedly merry with. Thus, deaf to all murmurs or +entreaties of those about him, he pursued his point, even to throwing +near her such trash as no person can be suppos'd to carry about him +unless to use on so particular an occasion. + +"A gentlemen then behind the scenes,[A] being shock'd at his unmanly +behaviour, was warm enough to say, that no man but a fool or a bully +could be capable of insulting an audience or a woman in so monstrous a +manner. The former valiant gentleman, to whose ear the words were soon +brought by his spies, whom he had plac'd behind the scenes to observe +how the action was taken there, came immediately from the pit in a +heat, and demanded to know of the author of those words if he was the +person that spoke them? to which he calmly reply'd, that though he had +never seen him before, yet since he seem'd so earnest to be satisfy'd, +he would do him the favour to own, that indeed the words were his, and +that they would be the last words he should chuse to deny whoever they +might fall upon. + +[Footnote A: Secretary Craggs.] + +"To conclude, their dispute was ended the next morning in Hyde Park, +where the determin'd combatant who first ask'd for satisfaction was +obliged afterwards to ask his life too; whether he mended it or not, I +have not yet heard; but his antagonist in a few years afterwards died +in one of the principal posts of the Government." + +There were no more such scenes after Santlow became Mrs. Barton Booth. +Everything was respectability, and the voice of the turtle-dove +appears to have been heard in the home of the happy couple. Yea, the +husband waxed ecstatic after several years of married bliss, once more +tuned his lyre, and burst forth into verses, wherein he set forth, +among other things: + + "Happy the hour when first our souls were joined! + The social virtues and the cheerful mind + Have ever crowned our days, beguiled our pain; + Strangers to discord and her clamorous train," &c. + +The lines suggest placidity of existence, and placid, indeed, was the +married life of Booth, barring his moments of ill-health. When his +career is compared to that of certain other players, it stands out in +rather pleasant relief, by virtue of its even tenor and prosperity. It +was free from the vicissitudes which have waylaid the paths of equally +great artists, and the current of his genius ran on without a ripple, +save that of sickness. There was one direction, however, wherein Booth +found variety and excitement, and that was in the wondrous diversity +of parts which he assumed. In tragedy, his work took a wide range, +going all the way from Laertes to Othello, while he sallied forth now +and again into the field of comedy, and emerged therefrom with honour. +He did not, to be sure, distinguish himself so brilliantly as a +comedian as he did in tragic garb, yet he wooed Thalia in a genteel +way which seldom failed to please. Nay, it is chronicled that he +impersonated capon-lined Falstaff in a fashion that amused even +phlegmatic Queen Anne. But the actor of long ago thought nothing of +such catholicity in art. He often worked like a horse, that he might +later play like a god.[A] + +[Footnote A: To show the versatility of Booth it need only be +mentioned that his parts (among many not herein named) included the +Ghost, Laertes, Horatio and the Prince in "Hamlet," Dick in "The +Confederacy," Captain Worthy in the "Fair Quaker of Deal," Pyrrhus, +Cato, Young Bevil in the "Conscious Lovers," Tamerlane, Oronooko, +Jaffier, Othello, King Lear, Hotspur, Wildair, Sir Charles Easy, +Falstaff, Cassio, Macbeth, Banquo, Lennox, Henry VIII. and Cinna. Few +living players can match such a repertoire.] + +Perhaps the most annoying disturbance which ever came into Booth's +theatrical life, and not a great disturbance at that, was the jealousy +which existed between Wilks and himself. Wilks was impetuous, bad +tempered and crotchety, and it is possible that the envy was, +originally, rather of his own making. But be that as it may, Booth +suffered many a pang from the successes of the more dashing Wilks, and +the latter never lost an opportunity of thwarting his associate. We +remember how the commonplace Mills was pushed forward, with the idea +of hiding the genius of Barton, and Cibber refers more than once to +this short-sighted policy of Wilks. "And yet, again," he writes, +"Booth himself, when he came to be a manager, would sometimes suffer +his judgment to be blinded by his inclination to actors whom the town +seem'd to have but an indifferent opinion of." And thereupon Colley +asks "another of his old questions"--viz., "Have we never seen the +same passions govern a Court! How many white staffs and great places +do we find, in our histories, have been laid at the feet of a monarch, +because they chose not to give way to a rival in power, or hold a +second place in his favour? How many Whigs and Tories have changed +their parties, when their good or bad pretentions have met with a +check to their higher preferment?" + +The fact is that there was never any artistic sympathy between the two +distinguished actors. Booth could play comedy, and play it quite well, +but his soul was all for tragedy. On the other hand, while Wilks knew +how to tread the sombre paths of high drama (he even made a creditable +Hamlet), the comedian looked with more regard upon his own peculiar +vein of work, the impersonation of the graceful, the genteel, and the +elegantly picturesque. In one way the latter proved more generous +than his rival. "It might be imagin'd," runs on Cibber, "from the +difference of their natural tempers, that Wilks should have been more +blind to the excellencies of Booth than Booth was to those of Wilks; +but it was not so. Wilks would sometimes commend Booth to me; but when +Wilks excell'd the other was silent."[A] + +[Footnote A: During Booth's inability to act ...Wilks was called upon +to play two of his parts: Jaffier and Lord Hastings in "Jane Shore." +Booth was, at times, in all other respects except his power to go +on the stage, in good health, and went among the players for his +amusement. His curiosity drew him to the playhouse on the nights when +Wilks acted these characters, in which himself had appeared with +uncommon lustre. All the world admired Wilks except his brother +manager: amidst the repeated bursts of applause which he extorted, +Booth alone continued silent.--DAVIES.] + +But all these petty heartburnings and jealousies were buried in the +grave of Wilks. That incomparable player, whose sprightliness seemed +to defy the grim tyrant, and who could act the lithesome youth upon +the stage even though he had to hobble to his hackney-coach when the +piece was ended, made his last exit in the autumn of 1732. Booth +followed on the same long journey in the May of 1733, after an illness +during which the great patient was dosed with crude mercury, bled, +plastered, blistered, and otherwise helped onward to his death. +Verily, it is a wonder that the physicians of old did not extinguish +the whole human race. + +The still attractive Santlow (or rather Mrs. Booth) survived the +tragedian, and her sorrow may have been assuaged by the remembrance +that she was left the sole heir of her husband. "I have considered my +circumstances," wrote Booth in his will, "and finding upon a strict +examination that all I am now possessed of does not amount to +two-thirds of the fortune my wife brought me on the day of our +marriage, together with the yearly additions and advantages since +arising from her laborious employment on the stage during twelve years +past, I thought myself bound by honesty, honour, and gratitude due to +her constant affection, not to give away any part of the remainder of +her fortune at my death"; and with that eloquent stroke of the pen +the testator cut off with nothing a sister and a brother whom he had +sufficiently helped during his lifetime. + +Surely so noble an actor deserves an epitaph. Perhaps none could be +more worthy than this estimate of the man, made by Aaron Hill: "He had +learning to understand perfectly whatever it was his part to speak, +and judgment to know how far it agreed or disagreed with his +character. Hence arose a peculiar grace which was visible to every +spectator, tho' few were at the pains of examining into the cause of +their pleasure. He could soften, or slide over, with a kind of elegant +negligence, the improprieties in a part he acted; while, on the +contrary, he would dwell with energy upon the beauties, as if he +exerted a latent spirit which had been kept back for such an occasion, +that he might alarm, waken, and transport, to those places only, where +the dignity of his own good sense could be supported with that of his +author." + +If some players of to-day will take a lesson by this description, the +judicious Booth need not have lived in vain. His soul, like that of +the late lamented John Brown, will go marching on. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE FADING OF A STAR + + +The life of Mistress Oldfield, like that of Barton Booth, was cast in +pleasant places. Yet the lady had her little agitations, and found +them, no doubt, rather an incentive to existence than otherwise. Take, +for instance, the excitement surrounding the production, during the +Drury Lane season of 1711-12, of Mrs. Centlivre's play, "The Perplexed +Lovers." To the lovely Nance was entrusted the duty of speaking the +epilogue thereto, wherein Prince Eugene (at that time on a visit to +England) and the Duke of Marlborough were lauded in the true spirit of +ancient flunkeyism. But the animosity which politics doth breed ran +high, and the first night of the performance went by without the +introduction of the eulogy. Some patriots objected to the sentiments +which it contained, and the managers were cautious. As for Oldfield, +she might have been cautious, too, and with reason, for she had +received letters threatening her with dire pains and penalties if she +spoke the offending words, but Anne stood ready to deliver them at +whatsoever time the patentees might name. So when the second night of +"The Perplexed Lovers" arrived, and a special licence from the Lord +Chamberlain had been secured, the actress came valiantly forward and +spoke the epilogue with success. Perhaps Eugene of Savoy thanked Mrs. +Oldfield--let us hope that he did--and it is at least certain that +after the withdrawal of the play his Highness sent Mrs. Centlivre an +elaborate gold snuff-box.[A] + +[Footnote A: Speaking of the beau's outfit in the reign of Queen Anne, +Ashton says: "His snuff-box, too, was an object of his solicitude, +though, as the habit of taking snuff had but just come into vogue, +there were no collections of them, and no beau had ever dreamed of +criticizing a box, as did Lord Petersham, as, 'a nice Summer box.' ... +Those of the middle classes were chiefly of silver, or tortoise-shell, +or mother-of-pearl; sometimes of 'aggat' or with a 'Moco Stone' in +the lid. A beau would sometimes either have a looking-glass, or the +portrait of a lady inside the lid."] + +And who was the gratified Centlivre? A masculine looking female with +a talent for play-writing, a tendency to appear in men's parts, and +last, but far from least, a nice little wen adorning her left eyelid. +She possessed other characteristics too, but those herein mentioned +are the only ones which stand out clearly after the lapse of nearly +two centuries. This doughty woman had been married twice before she +went to Windsor, where she once more entered into the matrimonial +noose, or rather, again inveigled an unfortunate into that treacherous +device. The visit to the seat of Royalty was signalised by her acting +of Alexander the Great, but from the atmosphere of Kings and Queens +she passed without a murmur to the humbler air of a kitchen. In other +words, she married a Mr. Centlivre, chief cook to her well-fed Majesty +Queen Anne; and the mean-livered Pope would refer to her, later on, as +"the cook's wife in Buckingham Court." She might, indeed, be a cook's +wife, but she knew how to write with vivacity, and produced many an +entertaining play. Among them were "A Bold Stroke for a Wife" and "The +Wonder," that comedy which Garrick would so relish in after years. + +The nature of the aforesaid "Wonder" was explained in the satirical +reflection of the secondary title, "A Woman Keeps a Secret!" And Mrs. +Centlivre had this to say in her epilogue, upon the mooted question of +feminine loquacity: + + "Keep a secret, says a beau, + And sneers at some ill-natured wit below; + But faith, if we should tell but half we know, + There's many a spruce young fellow in this place, + Wou'd never presume to show his face; + Women are not so weak, what e'er men prate; + How many tip-top beaux have had the fate, + T'enjoy from mama's secrets their estate! + Who, if her early folly had made known, + Had rid behind the coach that's now their own." + +Mrs. Oldfield received fresh cause for nervousness, had she been of +a timid temperament, when, some years later, during the season of +1717-18, Cibber's political play of "The Non-Juror" was brought out. +The comedy was a blow aimed at the Jacobites and the Pretender, who +had met with such disastrous treatment in the rebellion of 1715, and +was a skilfully-wrought laudation of the Hanoverian dynasty.[A] + +[Footnote A: The piece was published and dedicated to George I., who +acknowledged his sense of the honour by paying to Cibber the sum of +two hundred guineas. That the good old prejudice against the stage was +still in full force, despite the march of liberal ideas, is clearly +shown in the author's address to the King: "Your comedians, Sir, are +an unhappy society, whom some severe heads think wholly useless, +and others, dangerous to the young and innocent. This comedy is, +therefore, an attempt to remove that prejudice, and to show what +honest and laudable uses may be made of the theatre, when its +performances keep close to the true purposes of its institution." +Cibber also referred to himself as "the lowest of your subjects from +the theatre," and thus mirrored the servility of the golden Georgian +era.] + +"About this time," writes Cibber, telling of the play's presentation, +"Jacobitism had lately exerted itself by the most unprovoked rebellion +that our histories have handed down to us since the Norman Conquest; +I therefore thought that to set the authors and principles of that +desperate folly in a fair light, by allowing the mistaken consciences +of some their best excuse, and by making the artful Pretenders to +Conscience as ridiculous as they were ungratefully wicked, was a +subject fit for the honest satire of comedy, and what might, if it +succeeded, do honour to the stage by showing the valuable use of +it. And considering what numbers at that time might come to it as +prejudiced spectators, it may be allow'd that the undertaking was not +less hazardous than laudable." + +And hazardous the project certainly seemed; for, while the uprising in +the interests of the Pretender had been ostensibly crushed, the spirit +of "divine right" was as strong as ever; there were many worthy +gentlemen who drank secret bumpers to the King--"over the water"--and +the Hanoverian throne had as yet a precarious lodgment on English +soil. It was expected, therefore, that these malcontents would have +anything but an appetite for the theatrical feast set before them in +the shape of the "Non-Juror," and would prove none the less disgusted +because the play happened to be an adaptation of Molière's "Tartuffe." +As the latter comedy depicts a self-indulgent, crawling hypocrite of +the worst type, and is an eloquent sermon against sham, it may be +imagined that the Jacobites were not over enthusiastic when they +learned that the moral of "Tartuffe" was to be applied to them.[A] + +[Footnote A: Tartuffe, according to French tradition, is a caricature +of the famous Père la Chaise (Confessor to Louis Quatorze), who had +a weakness for the pleasures of the table, including truffles +(tartuffes). After Cibber's day, Molière's play was again adapted into +English, under the title of "The Hypocrite."] + +"Upon the hypocrisy of the French character," explains Cibber (who +probably looked upon France, Papacy, and the Pretender as a threefold +combination of sin), "I engrafted a stronger wickedness, that of an +English Popish priest lurking under the doctrine of our own Church +to raise his fortune upon the ruin of a worthy gentleman, whom his +dissembled sanctity had seduc'd into the treasonable cause of a Roman +Catholick outlaw. How this design, in the play, was executed, I refer +to the readers of it; it cannot be mended by any critical remarks I +can make in its favour. Let it speak for itself." + +The "Non-juror" did speak for itself, too, and that in decided +terms.[A] The production entailed the scorn of the disaffected, and +made for Cibber some lasting enemies, but the friends of government +were strong, Cibber was lauded for his loyalty, and the comedy +achieved a triumph. The vivacity of Oldfield's acting, as Maria, +delighted all beholders, and it was further agreed that the +performance was well given throughout. In the cast were Booth, Mills, +Wilks, Cibber, Mrs. Porter, Mrs. Oldfield, and Walker. The Walker here +mentioned was at that time a very young man, not over seventeen or +eighteen years of age, and made his first hit in the "Non-juror." When +the "Beggars' Opera" was subsequently brought out, the mighty Quin +refused to play the highwayman, Macheath, and Walker willingly took +the part and made therein the reputation of his life. But success +turned his unsteady head. "He follow'd Bacchus too ardently, insomuch +that his credit was often drown'd upon the stage, and, by degrees, +almost render'd him useless." Ungrammatical, but to the point, Mr. +Chetwood. + +[Footnote A: The success surpassed even expectation. It raised against +Cibber a phalanx of implacable foes--foes who howled at everything +of which he was afterwards the author; but it gained for him his +advancement to the poet-laureateship, and an estimation which caused +some people to place him, for usefulness to the cause of true +religion, on an equality with the author of "The Whole Duty of +Man."--DR. DORAN.] + +This Walker was a genius in a small fashion. He possessed an +expressive face and manly figure, with a native buoyancy and humour +which stood him in good stead in the character of Macheath, while he +had the further gift of dominating a tragic scene with an assumption +of tyrannic fire which must have been greatly admired by the +theatre-goers of his time. He could not sing, to be sure, when he +graced the "Beggars' Opera," but the audiences took the will for the +deed, applauded his gaiety of action, and quickly pardoned his lyric +short-comings. We are equally lenient nowadays to many a comic-opera +comedian, so called. Chetwood tells us that Walker was the supposed +author of two pieces, "The Quakers' Opera," and a tragedy styled "The +Fate of Villainy." The latter, it appears, "he brought to Ireland +in the year 1744, and prevailed on the proprietors (of the Dublin +theatre) to act it, under the title of 'Love and Loyalty.' The second +night was given out for his benefit; but not being able to pay in half +the charge of the common expences, the doors were order'd to be kept +shut." + +"But, I remember," laconically adds Chetwood, "few people came to ask +the reason. However, I fear this disappointment hasten'd his death; +for he survived it but three days; dying in the 44th year of his age, +a martyr to what often stole from him a good understanding." + + "He who delights in drinking out of season, + Takes wond'rous pains to drown his manly reason." + +Poor Walker! He is not the only actor who has perished from a mixture +of wine and injured vanity. + +To return to the success of the "Non-juror," Cibber writes: "All the +reason I had to think it no bad performance was, that it was acted +eighteen days running, and that the party that were hurt by it (as I +have been told) have not been the smallest number of my back friends +ever since. But happy was it for this play that the very subject +was its protection; a few smiles of silent contempt were the utmost +disgrace that on the first day of its appearance it was thought safe +to throw upon it; as the satire was chiefly employ'd on the enemies of +the Government, they were not so hardy as to own themselves such by +any higher disapprobation or resentment."[A] + +[Footnote A: The production of the "Non-juror" added Pope to the list +of Cibber's enemies, the great poet's father having been a Non-juror.] + +Yet Cibber's enemies never failed to make things unpleasant for him if +they could do so without running too great a risk. There was Nathaniel +Mist, for instance, who published a Jacobite paper called _Mist's +Weekly Journal_. This vindictive gentleman, whose political heresies +once brought him to the pillory and a prison, began a systematic +attack upon the actor-manager, and kept up the warfare for fifteen +years. Once, when Colley was ill of a fever, Mist made up his +journalistic mind that his enemy must have the good taste to depart +the pleasures of this life. So he inserted the following paragraph in +his paper: + +"Yesterday died Mr. Colley Cibber, late Comedian of the Theatre Royal, +notorious for writing the 'Non-juror.'" + +The very day that this obituary appeared Cibber crawled out of the +house, sick-faced but convalescent, and read the notice with keen +interest. Whether he was amused thereat, or dubbed the joke a poor +one, is a matter which he does not record, but he tells us that he +"saw no use in being thought to be thoroughly dead before his time," +and "therefore had a mind to see whether the town cared to have him +alive again." + +"So the play of the 'Orphan' being to be acted that day, I quietly +stole myself into the part of the Chaplain, which I had not been +seen in for many years before. The surprise of the audience at my +unexpected appearance on the very day I had been dead in the news, and +the paleness of my looks, seem'd to make it a doubt whether I was not +the ghost of my real self departed. But when I spoke, their wonder +eas'd itself by an applause; which convinc'd me they were then +satisfied that my friend Mist had told a fib of me. Now, if simply to +have shown myself in broad life, and about my business, after he had +notoriously reported me dead, can be called a reply, it was the only +one which his paper while alive ever drew from me." + +The Jacobites could not interfere with the triumph of the "Non-juror," +but they were shrewd enough to bide their time. That time came, as +they thought, in 1728, when there was unfolded at Drury Lane a comedy +which became famous under the title of "The Provoked Husband." The +rough draft of the play was the work of Vanbrugh, now dead, but the +dialogue and situations had been elaborated by Cibber. Here was a +chance, therefore, to damn the latter writer, and accordingly the +malcontents repaired to the theatre, hissed the performance roundly, +and then went home with the comfortable reflection that they had +gotten their revenge. Their revenge, however, was shortlived, for the +general public liked the comedy, and soon flocked to its rescue. + +"On the first day of 'The Provok'd Husband,'" says the Poet Laureate, +"ten years after the 'Non-juror' had appear'd, a powerful party, not +having the fear of publick offence or private injury before their +eyes, appeared most impetuously concerned for the demolition of it; in +which they so far succeeded that for some time I gave it up for lost; +and to follow their blows, in the publick papers of the next day it +was attack'd and triumph'd over as a dead and damn'd piece: a swinging +criticism was made upon it in general invective terms, for they +disdain'd to trouble the world with particulars; their sentence, it +seems, was proof enough of its deserving the fate it had met with. +But this damn'd play was, notwithstanding, acted twenty-eight nights +together, and left off at a receipt of upwards of a hundred and forty +pounds; which happened to be more than in fifty years before could be +then said of any one play whatsoever." + +The play was saved, and no one contributed more importantly to that +result than did Mistress Oldfield. Her acting as the heroine, Lady +Townley, was pronounced superb, and though she had now drifted into +middle-age--was she not over forty?--Nance still seemed, on the stage +at least, the incarnation of youth and grace. Is there not a certain +English actress, now living (one, by-the-way, who plays Nance Oldfield +and suggests her as well) who defies the inroads of time with equal +carelessness.[A] + +[Footnote A: In the wearing of her person she (Oldfield) was +particularly fortunate; her figure was always improving to her +thirty-sixth year, but her excellence in acting was never at a stand. +And Lady Townley, one of her last new parts, was a proof that she was +still able to do more, if more could have been done for her.--GENEST.] + +Lady Townley is nothing more or less than a glorified, matured edition +of Lady Betty Modish, and, therefore, a very charming woman. Charming, +at least, on the boards of a theatre, if not upon the floor of a real +drawing-room. For she has a love of pleasure which can hardly be +called domestic, and her unfortunate husband, who would see more of +her, is tempted to ask, in the very first scene of the play: "Why did +I marry?" "While she admits no lover," Lord Townley soliloquises [for +my lady is at least virtuous] "she thinks it a greater merit still, in +her chastity, not to care for her husband; and while she herself is +solacing in one continual round of cards and good company, he, poor +wretch, is left at large to take care of his own contentment. 'Tis +time, indeed, some care were taken, and speedily there shall be. Yet +let me not be rash. Perhaps this disappointment of my heart may +make me too impatient; and some tempers, when reproach'd, grow more +untractable." + +And when Lady Townley, all graces and ribbons and laces, enters on the +scene my lord meekly asks: + + + * * * * * + +"Going out so soon after dinner, madam?" + +"Lady T. Lord, my Lord, what can I possibly do at home? + +"Lord T. What does my sister, Lady Grace, do at home? + +"Lady T. Why, that is to me amazing! Have you ever any pleasure at +home? + +"Lord T. It might be in your power, madam, I confess, to make it a +little more comfortable to me. + +"Lady T. Comfortable! and so, my good lord, you would really have a +woman of my rank and spirit, stay at home to comfort her husband! +Lord! what notions of life some men have! + +"Lord T. Don't you think, madam, some ladies notions are full as +extravagant?" + +"Lady T. Yes, my lord, when tame doves live cooped within the pen of +your precepts, I do think 'em prodigious indeed! + +"Lord T. And when they fly wild about this town, madam, pray what must +the world think of 'em then? + +"Lady T. Oh! this world is not so ill bred as to quarrel with any +woman for liking it. + +"Lord T. Nor am I, madam, a husband so well bred as to bear my wife's +being so fond of it; in short, the life you lead, madam-- + +"Lady T. Is, to me, the pleasantest life in the world. + +"Lord T. I should not dispute your taste, madam, if a woman had a +right to please nobody but herself. + +"Lady T. Why, whom would you have her please? + +"Lord T. Sometimes her husband. + +"Lady T. And don't you think a husband under the same obligation? + +"Lord T. Certainly. + +"Lady T. Why then we are agreed, my lord. For if I never go abroad +till I am weary of being at home--which you know is the case--is it +not equally reasonable, not to come home till one's a weary of being +abroad? + +"Lord T. If this be your rule of life, madam, 'tis time to ask you one +serious question. + +"Lady T. Don't let it be long acoming then, for I am in haste. + +"Lord T. Madam, when I am serious, I expect a serious answer. + +"Lady T. Before I know the question? [Here we can imagine Wilks, who +played Lord Townley, waxing exceeding wroth at my lady.] + +"Lord T. Pshah--have I power, madam, to make you serious by intreaty? + +"Lady T. You have. + +"Lord T. And you promise to answer me sincerely. + +"Lady T. Sincerely. + +"Lord T. Now then recollect your thoughts, and tell me seriously why +you married me? + +"Lady T. You insist upon truth, you say? + +"Lord T. I think I have a right to it. + +"Lady T. Why then, my lord, to give you at once a proof of my +obedience and sincerity--I think--I married--to take off that +restraint that lay upon my pleasures, while I was a single woman. + +"Lord T. How, madam, is any woman under less restraint after marriage +than before it? + +"Lady T. O my lord! my lord! they are quite different creatures! Wives +have infinite liberties in life that would be terrible in an unmarried +woman to take. + +"Lord T. Name one. + +"Lady T. Fifty, if you please. To begin then, in the morning--a +married women may have men at her toilet, invite them to dinner, +appoint them a party in a stage box at the play; engross the +conversation there, call 'em by their Christian names; talk louder +than the players;--from thence jaunt into the city--take a frolicksome +supper at an India house--perhaps, in her _gaieté de coeur_, toast a +pretty fellow--then clatter again to this end of the town, break with +the morning into an assembly, crowd to the hazard table, throw a +familiar levant upon some sharp lurching man of quality, and if he +demands his money, turn it off with a loud laugh, and cry--you'll owe +it to him, to vex him! ha! ha! + +"Lord T. [_Aside_]. Prodigious!" + +It is related that so magnificently did Oldfield describe the +pleasures of a woman of fashion that the audience echoed, with a +different meaning, Lord Townley's comment, and showered her with +plaudits. "Prodigious," indeed, must have been her acting. + +Nance was even more captivating, as the comedy progressed, and nowhere +did she shine more brilliantly, it may be supposed, than in the +following scene: + +"Lady Townley. Well! look you, my lord; I can bear it no longer! +Nothing still but about my faults, my faults! An agreeable subject +truly! + +"Lord T. Why, madam, if you won't hear of them, how can I ever hope to +see you mend them? + +"Lady T. Why, I don't intend to mend them--I can't mend them--you know +I have try'd to do it an hundred times, and--it hurts me so--I can't +bear it! + +"Lord T. And I, madam, can't bear this daily licentious abuse of your +time and character. + +"Lady T. Abuse! astonishing! when the universe knows, I am never +better company than when I am doing what I have a mind to! But to +see this world! that men can never get over that silly spirit of +contradiction--why, but last Thursday, now--there you wisely amended +one of my faults, as you call them--you insisted upon my not going to +the masquerade--and pray, what was the consequence? Was not I as cross +as the Devil, all the night after? Was not I forc'd to get company at +home? And was it not almost three o'clock in the morning before I +was able to come to myself again? And then the fault is not mended +neither--for next time I shall only have twice the inclination to go: +so that all this mending and mending, you see, is but darning an old +ruffle, to make it worse than it was before. + +"Lord T. Well, the manner of women's living, of late, is +insupportable, and one way or other-- + +"Lady T. It's to be mended, I suppose! Why, so it may, but then, my +dear lord, you must give one time--and when things are at worst, you +know, they may mend themselves! Ha! ha! + +"Lord T. Madam, I am not in a humour, now, to trifle. + +"Lady T. Why, then, my lord, one word of fair argument--to talk with +you, your own way now--you complain of my late hours, and I of your +early ones--so far we are even, you'll allow--but pray which gives us +the best figure, in the eye of the polite world, my active, spirited +three in the morning, or your dull, drowsy, eleven at night? Now, +I think, one has the air of a woman of quality, and t'other of a +plodding mechanic, that goes to bed betimes, that he may rise early, +to open his shop--faugh! + +"LORD T. Fy, fy, madam! is this your way of reasoning? 'Tis time to +wake you then. 'Tis not your ill hours alone that disturb me, but as +often the ill company that occasion those ill hours. + +"LADY T. Sure I don't understand you now, my lord; what ill company do +I keep? + +"LORD T. Why, at best, women that lose their money, and men that win +it! or, perhaps, men that are voluntary bubbles at one game, in hopes +a lady will give them fair play at another.[A] Then that unavoidable +mixture with known rakes, conceal'd thieves, and sharpers in +embroidery--or what, to me, is still more shocking, that herd of +familiar chattering, crop-ear'd coxcombs, who are so often like +monkeys, there would be no knowing them asunder, but that their tails +hang from their head, and the monkey's grows where it should do. + +[Footnote A: Women gambled as passionately as did the men in the early +part of the eighteenth century. Ashton quotes the following from the +"Gaming Lady": "She's a profuse lady, tho' of a miserly temper, whose +covetous disposition is the very cause of her extravagancy; for the +desire of success wheedles her ladyship to play, and the incident +charges and disappointments that attend it make her as expensive to +her husband as his coach and six horses. When an unfortunate night has +happen'd to empty her cabinet, she has many shifts to replenish her +pockets. Her jewels are carry'd privately into Lombard street, and +fortune is to be tempted the next night with another sum, borrowed +of my lady's goldsmith at the extortion of a pawnbroker; and if that +fails, then she sells off her wardrobe, to the great grief of her +maids; stretches her credit amongst those she deals with, or makes her +waiting woman dive into the bottom of her trunk, and lug out her green +net purse full of old Jacobuses, in hopes to recover her losses by a +turn of fortune, that she may conceal her bad luck from the knowledge +of her husband."] + +"Lady T. And a husband must give eminent proof of his sense that +thinks their powder puffs dangerous! + +"Lord T. Their being fools, madam, is not always the husband's +security; or, if it were, fortune sometimes gives them advantages +might make a thinking woman tremble. + +"Lady T. What do you mean? + +"Lord T. That women sometimes lose more than they are able to pay; +and, if a creditor be a little pressing, the lady may be reduced to +try if, instead of gold, the gentleman will accept of a trinket. + +"Lady T. My lord, you grow scurrilous; you'll make me hate you. I'll +have you to know I keep company with the politest people in town, and +the assemblies I frequent are full of such. + +"Lord T. So are the churches--now and then. + +"Lady T. My friends frequent them, too, as well as the assemblies. + +"Lord T. Yes; and would do it oftener if a groom of the chambers there +were allowed to furnish cards to the company. + +"Lady T. I see what you drive at all this while. You would lay an +imputation on my fame to cover your own avarice! I might take any +pleasures, I find, that were not expensive. + +"Lord T. Have a care, madam; don't let me think you only value your +chastity to make me reproachable for not indulging you in everything +else that's vicious. I, madam, have a reputation, too, to guard that's +dear to me as yours. The follies of an ungoverned wife may make the +wisest man uneasy; but 'tis his own fault if ever they make him +contemptible. + +"Lady T. My lord, you make a woman mad! + +"Lord T. You'd make a man a fool. + +"Lady T. If heaven has made you otherwise, that won't be in my power. + +"Lord T. Whatever may be in your inclination, madam, I'll prevent you +making me a beggar, at least. + +"Lady T. A beggar! Croesus, I'm out of patience. I won't come home +till four to-morrow morning. + +"Lord T. That may be, madam; but I'll order the doors to be locked at +twelve. + +"Lady T. Then I won't come home till to-morrow night. + +"Lord T. Then, madam, you shall never come home again." [_Exit_ Lord +Townley. + + * * * * * + +In the end, of course, Lady Townley is converted to the pleasures of +domesticity, and ends the comedy by saying: + + "So visible the bliss, so plain the way, + How was it possible my sense could stray? + But now, a convert to this truth I come, + That married happiness is never found from home." + +Perhaps when Oldfield delivered these virtuous lines, she thought to +herself that happiness, even of the unmarried kind, was never very far +away from home. But she forgot sentiment when she came back to give +the breezy epilogue: + + "Methinks I hear some powder'd critics say + Damn it, this wife reform'd has spoil'd the play! + The coxcombs should have drawn her more in fashion, + Have gratify'd her softer inclination, + Have tipt her a gallant, and clinch'd the provocation. + But there our bard stops short: for 'twere uncivil + T'have made a modern belle all o'er a devil! + He hop'd in honor of the sex, the age + Would bear one mended woman--on the stage." + +Continuing, after diverse moral reflections, Nance made this appeal to +her hearers: + + "You, you then, ladies, whose unquestion'd lives + Give you the foremost fame of happy wives, + Protect, for its attempt, this helpless play; + Nor leave it to the vulgar taste a prey; + Appear the frequent champion of its cause, + Direct the crowd, and give yourselves applause." + +"Zounds, madam," cries a beau who is ogling a woman of quality in a +stage box, "they say Anne Oldfield will never see forty-two again, but +I'll warrant you, madam, she looks not a day older than yourself." And +the woman of quality, who is over forty, bows at the compliment, as +well she may. Bellchambers records that Lady Townley was universally +regarded as Oldfield's _ne plus ultra_ in acting. "She slided so +gracefully into the foibles, and displayed so humorously the excesses, +of a fine woman too sensible of her charms, too confident in her +strength, and led away by her pleasures, that no succeeding Lady +Townley arrived at her many distinguished excellencies in the +character."[A] And the writer goes on to say that "by being a welcome +and constant visitor to families of distinction, Mrs. Oldfield +acquired a graceful carriage in representing women of high rank, and +expressed their sentiments in a manner so easy, natural, and flowing, +that they appeared to be of her own genuine utterance." Pray, sir, +what is there so remarkable about that? Had not Anne as gentle blood +as that which coursed through the veins of many a lady of rank? + +[Footnote A: The Lady Townleys of later years included Mrs. Spranger +Barry and the imposing Mistress Yates.] + +But the triumphs of the first Lady Townley were fast drawing to a +close; the curtain would soon be rung down for ever upon that radiant +face, with its angelic smile and dancing eyes, and the stage, whether +Drury Lane or mother earth would see her no more. Ill health began to +follow in her once careless path, and there were times when the duties +of acting seemed almost unbearable. Yet she was a brave woman, and +kept a merry front to the audience, although she was obliged, on +occasions, to turn away from the house, that it might not see the +tears of pain flowing down her cheek. Here was a combination of comedy +and tragedy, with a vengeance! + +Still Nance went on, delighting the town as of yore, and putting into +her last original rôle, that of Sophonisba, a fire which breathed not +of sickness nor failing powers. At last there came a day when she +played her final part, and left Drury Lane only to be driven tenderly +home to her death-bed. Think of the pathos of this last performance, +this giving up of all that was most alluring in life, and let none of +us poor moderns presume to analyse the heart-broken woman's feelings +as she said good-bye to the dear old theatre. Anne worshipped art, and +the public, in turn, worshipped her; she had acted her many parts, +laughed, cried, sinned, and waxed exceeding happy--and now she was to +be cast out into the darkness. Must she not have shivered when she +entered her house in Lower Grosvenor Street for the last time? Poor +lovable creature! There could be for her now neither lights, nor +laughter, nor applause; all would be gloom and weariness to the end. + +During the weeks which followed, the invalid received the untiring +attentions of Mistress Saunders, who once upon a time played bouncing +chambermaids, but who had, for ten years past, acted as a feminine +_valet de chambre_ and general factotum for Mrs. Oldfield. And if ever +she played well, 'twas in thus ministering to the dying wants of one +who in health had been ever helpful and generous. Pope, who hated the +great comedienne in his petty, spiteful way, has immortalised the +intimacy of mistress and handmaiden in these lines: + + "'Odious! in woolen? 'twould a saint provoke!' + Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke. + 'No, let a charming Chintz and Brussels lace + Wrap my cold limbs and shade my lifeless face; + One would not sure be frightful when one's dead, + And, Betty, give this cheek a little red.'"[A] + +[Footnote A: Pope's Moral Essays.] + +These ante-mortem directions had no further reality than the +imagination of the poet; but it is easy to believe that the woman who +had set the fashions for the town these many years would have enough +of the feminine instinct left, though Death waited without, to plan a +becoming funeral garb. Woollen, forsooth! It was a beastly law which +required that all the dead should be buried in that material, and +Nance shuddered when she thought of it.[A] + +[Footnote A: The dead were then buried in woolen, which was rendered +compulsory by the Acts 30 Car. II. c. 3 and 36 ejusdem c. i. The first +act was entitled "an Act for the lessening the importation of linnen +from beyond the seas, and the encouragement of the woolen and paper +manufactures of the kingdome." It prescribed that the curate of every +parish, shall keep a register to be provided at the charge of the +parish, wherein to enter all burials and affidavits of persons being +buried in woolen; the affidavit to be taken by any justice of the +peace, mayor, or such like chief officer in the parish where the +body was interred.... It imposed a fine of five pounds for every +infringement, one half to go to the informer, and the other half to +the poor of the parish. This Act was only repealed by 54 Geo. III. +c. 108, or in the year 1815. The material used was flannel, and +such interments are frequently mentioned in the literature of the +time.--ASHTON.] + +Soon there were no more thoughts of dress, no more plaintive shudders +at the iniquity of the woollen act. The eyes whose kindly light had +illumined the dull soul of many a playgoer, closed for ever on the +23rd of October, 1730, and the incomparable Oldfield was no more. +Surely old Sol did not shine on London that day; surely he must +have mourned behind the leaden English sky for one of his fairest +daughters, that child of sunshine who brightened the world by her +presence, and made her exit, as she did her entrance, with a smile. + +After the breath had left Anne's still lovely body, Mistress Saunders +dressed her in a "Brussels lace head-dress, a Holland shift, with +tucker and double ruffles of the same lace, and a pair of new +kid gloves." It was, no doubt, the costume which the actress had +commanded, and handsome she must have looked, as many an admirer took +one last glimpse of the remains prior to the interment in Westminster +Abbey. All that was mortal of Oldfield lay in state in the Jerusalem +Chamber,[A] and then there followed an elaborate funeral, at which +were present a host of great men, and the two sons of the deceased, +Mr. Maynwaring and young Churchill. Were these sons less grieved when +they found that their mother had left them the major part of her +fortune? + +[Footnote A: The solemn lying in state of an English actress in the +Jerusalem Chamber, the sorrow of the public over their lost favourite, +and the regret of friends in noble, or humble, but virtuous homes, +where Mrs. Oldfield had been ever welcome, contrast strongly with the +French sentiment towards French players. It has been already said, +that as long as Clairon exercised the power, when she advanced to the +footlights, to make the (then standing) pit recoil several feet, by +the mere magic of her eyes, the pit, who enjoyed the terror as a +luxury, flung crowns to her, and wept at the thought of losing her; +but Clairon infirm was Clairon forgotten, and to a decaying actor or +actress a French audience is the most merciless in the world. The +brightest and best of them, as with us, died in the service of the +public. Monfleury, Mondory, and Bricourt died of apoplexy, brought on +by excess of zeal. Molière, who fell in harness, was buried with +less ceremony than some favourite dog. The charming Lecouvreur, that +Oldfield of the French stage, whose beauty and intellect were the +double charm which rendered theatrical France ecstatic, was hurriedly +interred within a saw-pit. Bishops might be exceedingly interested in, +and unepiscopally generous to living actresses of wit and beauty, but +the prelates smote them with a "Maranatha!" and an "Avaunt ye!" when +dead.--DR. DORAN.] + +Later on Savage was inspired to write that famous poem of his, +unsigned though it appeared, on the virtues of the departed: + + "Oldfield's no more! and can the Muse forbear + O'er Oldfield's grave to shed a grateful tear? + Shall she, the Glory of the British Stage, + Pride of her sex, and wonder of the age; + Shall she, who, living, charm'd th' admiring throng, + Die undistinguish'd, and not claim a song? + No; feeble as it is, I'll boldly raise + My willing voice, to celebrate her praise, + And with her name immortalise my lays. + Had but my Muse her art to touch the soul, + Charm ev'ry sense, and ev'ry pow'r control, + I'd paint her as she was--the form divine, + Where ev'ry lovely grace united shine; + A mein majestic, as the wife of Jove; + An air as winning as the Queen of Love: + In ev'ry feature rival charms should rise, + And Cupid hold his empire in her eyes. + A soul, with ev'ry elegance refin'd, + By nature, and the converse of mankind: + Wit, which could strike assuming folly dead; + And sense, which temper'd ev'ry thing she said; + Judgment, which ev'ry little fault could spy; + But candour, which would pass a thousand by: + Such finish'd breeding, so polite a taste, + Her fancy always for the fashion pass'd; + Whilst every social virtue fir'd her breast + To help the needy, succour the distrest; + A friend to all in misery she stood, + And her chief pride was plac'd in doing good. + But now, my Muse, the arduous task engage, + And shew the charming figure on the stage; + Describe her look, her action, voice and mein, + The gay coquette, soft maid, or haughty Queen. + So bright she shone, in ev'ry different part, + She gain'd despotic empire o'er the heart; + Knew how each various motion to control, + Sooth ev'ry passion, and subdue the soul: + As she, o'er gay, or sorrowful appears, + She claims our mirth, or triumphs in our tears. + When Cleopatra's form she chose to wear + We saw the monarch's mein, the beauty's air; + Charmed with the sight, her cause we all approve, + And, like her lover, give up all for love: + Anthony's fate, instead of Caesar's choose, + And wish for her we had a world to lose. + But now the gay delightful scene is o'er, + And that sweet form must glad our world no more; + Relentless death has stop'd the tuneful tongue, + And clos'd those eyes, for all, but death, too strong, + Blasted that face where ev'ry beauty bloom'd, + And to Eternal Rest the graceful Mover doom'd." + +In writing which Savage almost justified his existence. + + + + +APPENDIX + + +THEATRICAL CLAPTRAP + +(_What Addison has to say about it in the "Spectator_") + +No. 44. FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1711. + + "Tu quid ego, et populus mecum desideret, audi." + HOR. ARS POET. ver. 153. + + "Now hear what ev'ry auditor expects." + ROSCOMMON. + + +Among the several artifices which are put in practice by the poets to +fill the minds of an audience with terror, the first place is due to +thunder and lightning, which are often made use of at the descending +of a god, or the rising of a ghost, at the vanishing of a devil, or +at the death of a tyrant. I have known a bell introduced into several +tragedies with good effect; and have seen the whole assembly in a very +great alarm all the while it has been ringing. But there is nothing +which delights and terrifies our English theatre so much as a ghost, +especially when he appears in a bloody shirt. A spectre has very often +saved a play, though he has done nothing but stalked across the stage, +or rose through a cleft of it, and sunk again without speaking one +word. There may be a proper season for these several terrors; and when +they only come in as aids and assistances to the poet, they are not +only to be excused, but to be applauded. Thus the sounding of the +clock in "Venice Preserved" makes the hearts of the whole audience +quake, and conveys a stronger terror to the mind than it is possible +for words to do. The appearance of the ghost in "Hamlet" is a +masterpiece in its kind, and wrought up with all the circumstances +that can create either attention or horror. The mind of the reader is +wonderfully prepared for his reception by the discourses that precede +it. His dumb behaviour at his first entrance strikes the imagination +very strongly; but every time he enters he is still more terrifying. +Who can read the speech with which young Hamlet accosts him without +trembling? + + "_Hor_. Look, my Lord, it comes! + + "_Ham_. Angels and ministers of grace defend us! + Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd; + Bring with thee airs from heav'n, or blasts from hell; + Be thy events wicked or charitable; + Thou com'st in such a questionable shape + That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet, + King, Father, Royal Dane. Oh I answer me. + Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell + Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death, + Have burst their cerements? Why the sepulchre, + Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd, + Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws + To cast thee up again? What may this mean? + That thou dead corse again in complete steel + Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon, + Making night hideous?" + +I do not therefore find fault with the artifices above mentioned, +when they are introduced with skill and accompanied by proportionable +sentiments and expressions in the writings. + +For the moving of pity our principal machine is the handkerchief; and +indeed in our common tragedies we should not know very often that the +persons are in distress by anything they say, if they did not from +time to time apply their handkerchiefs to their eyes. Far be it from +me to think of banishing this instrument of sorrow from the stage; I +know a tragedy could not subsist without it: all that I would contend +for is to keep it from being misapplied. In a word, I would have the +actor's tongue sympathise with his eyes. + +A disconsolate mother, with a child in her hand, has frequently drawn +compassion from the audience, and has therefore gained a place in +several tragedies. A modern writer, that observed how this had took +in other plays, being resolved to double the distress, and melt +his audience twice as much as those before him had done, brought a +princess upon the stage with a little boy in one hand and a girl +in the other. This too had a very good effect. A third poet being +resolved to outwrite all his predecessors, a few years ago introduced +three children with great success: and, as I am informed, a young +gentleman, who is fully determined to break the most obdurate hearts, +has a tragedy by him where the first person that appears upon the +stage is an afflicted widow in her mourning weeds, with half a dozen +fatherless children attending her, like those that usually hang about +the figure of Charity. Thus several incidents that are beautiful in a +good writer become ridiculous by falling into the hands of a bad one. + +But among all our methods of moving pity or terror, there is none so +absurd and barbarous, and which more exposes us to the contempt and +ridicule of our neighbours, than that dreadful butchering of one +another, which is very frequent upon the English stage. To delight in +seeing men stabbed, poisoned, racked, or impaled is certainly the sign +of a cruel temper; and as this is often practised before the British +audience, several French critics, who think these are grateful +spectacles to us, take occasion from them to represent us as a people +who delight in blood. It is indeed very odd to see our stage strewed +with carcasses in the last scenes of a tragedy; and to observe in the +wardrobe of the playhouse several daggers, poniards, wheels, bowls for +poison, and many other instruments of death. Murders and executions +are always transacted behind the scenes in the French theatre, which +in general is very agreeable to the manners of a polite and civilised +people; but as there are no exceptions to this rule on the French +stage, it leads them into absurdities almost as ridiculous as that +which falls under our present censure. I remember in the famous play +of Corneille, written upon the subject of the Horatii and Curiatii, +the fierce young hero, who had overcome the Curiatii one after another +(instead of being congratulated by his sister for his victory, being +upbraided by her for having slain her lover), in the height of his +passion and resentment kills her. If anything could extenuate so +brutal an action, it would be the doing of it on a sudden, before the +sentiments of nature, reason, or manhood could take place in him. +However, to avoid public bloodshed, as soon as his passion is wrought +to its height, he follows his sister the whole length of the stage, +and forbears killing her till they are both withdrawn behind the +scenes. I must confess, had he murdered her before the audience, the +indecency might have been greater; but as it is, it appears very +unnatural, and looks like killing in cold blood. To give my opinion +upon this case, the fact ought not to have been represented, but to +have been told if there was any occasion for it. + +It may not be unacceptable to the reader to see how Sophocles has +conducted a tragedy under the like delicate circumstance. Orestes was +in the same condition with Hamlet in Shakespeare, his mother having +murdered his father and taken possession of his kingdom in conspiracy +with her adulterer. That young prince, therefore, being determined to +revenge his father's death upon those who filled his throne, conveys +himself by a beautiful stratagem into his mother's apartment, with a +resolution to kill her. But because such a spectacle would have been +too shocking to the audience, this dreadful resolution is executed +behind the scenes. The mother is heard calling to her son for mercy, +and the son answering her that she showed no mercy to his father; +after which she shrieks out that she is wounded, and by what follows +we find that she is slain. I do not remember that in any of our plays +there are speeches made behind the scenes, though there are other +instances of this nature to be met with in those of the ancients: +and I believe my reader will agree with me that there is something +infinitely more affecting in this dreadful dialogue between the +mother and her son behind the scenes than could have been in anything +transacted before the audience. Orestes immediately after meets the +usurper at the entrance of his palace; and by a very happy thought of +the poet avoids killing him before the audience, by telling him that +he should live some time in his present bitterness of soul before he +would despatch him, and by ordering him to retire into that part +of the palace where he had slain his father, whose murder he would +revenge in the very same place where it was committed. By this means +the poet observes that decency, which Horace afterwards established as +a rule, of forbearing to commit parricides or unnatural murders before +the audience. + + "Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet," + ARS POET. ver. 185. + + "Let not Medea draw her murd'ring knife, + And spill her children's blood upon the stage." + ROSCOMMON. + +The French have therefore refined too much upon Horace's rule, who +never designed to banish all kinds of death from the stage; but only +such as had too much horror in them, and which would have a better +effect upon the audience when transacted behind the scenes. I would +therefore recommend to my countrymen the practice of the ancient +poets, who were very sparing of their public executions, and rather +chose to perform them behind the scenes, if it could be done with as +great an effect upon the audience. At the same time, I must observe, +that though the devoted persons of the tragedy were seldom slain +before the audience, which has generally something ridiculous in it, +their bodies were often produced after their death, which has always +in it something melancholy or terrifying; so that the killing on the +stage does not seem to have been avoided only as an indecency, but +also as an improbability. + + "Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet: + Aut humana palam coquat exta nefarius Atreus; + Aut in avem Progne vertatur, Cadmus in anguem. + Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi." + HOR. ARS. POET. ver. 185. + + "Medea must not draw her murd'ring knife, + Nor Atreus there his horrid feast prepare; + Cadmus and Progne's metamorphoses + (She to a swallow turn'd, he to a snake); + And whatsoever contradicts my sense, + I hate to see, and never can believe." + ROSCOMMON. + +I have now gone through the several dramatic inventions which are made +use of by the ignorant poets to supply the place of tragedy, and +by the skilful to improve it; some of which I could wish entirely +rejected, and the rest to be used with caution. It would be an +endless task to consider comedy in the same light, and to mention the +innumerable shifts that small wits put in practice to raise a laugh. +Bullock in a short coat, and Norris in a long one, seldom failed of +this effect.[A] In ordinary comedies a broad and a narrow brimmed +hat are different characters. Sometimes the wit of a scene lies in a +shoulder-belt, and sometimes in a pair of whiskers. A lover running +about the stage, with his head peeping out of a barrel, was thought a +very good jest in King Charles the Second's time, and invented by +one of the first wits of the age.[B] But because ridicule is not so +delicate as compassion, and because the objects that make us laugh are +infinitely more numerous than those that make us weep, there is a much +greater latitude for comic than tragic artifices, and by consequence a +much greater indulgence to be allowed them. + +[Footnote A: Addison's comment about these two favourite comedians +shows that then, as now, eccentricity in dress formed a popular +species of stage humour.] + +[Footnote B: Sir George Etherege, in his comedy of "The Comical +Revenge, or Love in a Tub."] + + + + +COMIC EPILOGUES + +_(From the "Spectator")_ + +No. 338. FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1712. + + "Nil fuit unquam + Sic dispar sibi." + HOR. SAT. III. 1-1-18. + + "Made up of nought but inconsistencies." + + +I find the tragedy of the "Distressed Mother" is published to-day. The +author of the prologue,[A] I suppose pleads an old excuse I have read +somewhere, of "being dull with design;" and the gentleman who writ the +epilogue[B] has, to my knowledge, so much of greater moment to value +himself upon, that he will easily forgive me for publishing the +exceptions made against gaiety at the end of serious entertainments in +the following letter: I should be more unwilling to pardon him, than +anybody, a practice which cannot have any ill consequence, but from +the abilities of the person who is guilty of it. + +[Footnote A: Steele.] + +[Footnote B: Addison credited Budgell with the epilogue.] + +"MR. SPECTATOR,--I had the happiness the other night of sitting very +near you, and your worthy friend Sir Roger, at the acting of the new +tragedy, which you have in a late paper or two so justly recommended. +I was highly pleased with the advantageous situation fortune had given +me in placing me so near two gentlemen, from one of which I was sure +to hear such reflections on the several incidents of the play as pure +nature suggested; and from the other, such as flowed from the exactest +art and judgment; though I must confess that my curiosity led me so +much to observe the knight's reflections that I was not so well at +leisure to improve myself by yours. Nature, I found, played her part +in the knight pretty well, till at the last concluding lines she +entirely forsook him. You must know, Sir, that it is always my custom, +when I have been well entertained at a new tragedy, to make my retreat +before the facetious epilogue enters; not but that those pieces are +often very well writ, but having paid down my half-crown, and made a +fair purchase of as much of the pleasing melancholy as the poet's art +can afford me, or my own nature admit of, I am willing to carry some +of it home with me; and cannot endure to be at once tricked out of +all, though by the wittiest dexterity in the world. However, I kept my +seat the other night, in hopes of finding my own sentiments of this +matter favoured by your friend's; when, to my great surprise, I found +the knight, entering with equal pleasure into both parts, and as much +satisfied with Mrs. Oldfield's gaiety, as he had been before with +Andromache's greatness. Whether this were no more than an effect of +the knight's peculiar humanity, pleased to find at last, that, after +all the tragical doings, everything was safe and well, I do not know. +But for my own part, I must confess I was so dissatisfied, that I was +sorry the poet had saved Andromache, and could heartily have wished +that he had left her stone-dead upon the stage. For you cannot +imagine, Mr. Spectator, the mischief she was reserved to do me. I +found my soul, during the action, gradually worked up to the highest +pitch; and felt the exalted passion which all generous minds conceive +at the sight of virtue in distress. The impression, believe me, Sir, +was so strong upon me, that I am persuaded, if I had been let alone in +it, I could at an extremity have ventured to defend yourself and Sir +Roger against half a score of the fiercest Mohocks; but the ludicrous +epilogue in the close extinguished all my ardour, and made me look +upon all such noble achievements as downright silly and romantic. What +the rest of the audience felt, I cannot so well tell. For myself I +must declare, that at the end of the play I found my soul uniform, +and all of a piece; but at the end of the epilogue, it was so jumbled +together and divided between jest and earnest, that, if you will +forgive me an extravagant fancy, I will here set it down. I could +not but fancy, if my soul had at that moment quitted my body, and +descended to the poetical shades in the posture it was then in, what +a strange figure it would have made among them. They would not have +known what to have made of my motley spectre, half comic and half +tragic, all over resembling a ridiculous face, that, at the same time, +laughs on one side, and cries on the other. The only defence, I think, +I have ever heard made for this, as it seems to me the most unnatural +tack of the comic tail to the tragic head, is this, that the minds of +the audience must be refreshed, and gentlemen and ladies not sent away +to their own homes with too dismal and melancholy thoughts about them: +for who knows the consequence of this? We are much obliged indeed to +poets for the great tenderness they express for the safety of our +persons, and heartily thank them for it. But if that be all, pray, +good Sir, assure them, that we are none of us like to come to any +great harm; and that, let them do their best, we shall, in all +probability, live out the length of our days, and frequent the +theatres more than ever. What makes me more desirous to have some +reformation of this matter is, because of an ill consequence or two +attending it: for a great many of our church musicians being related +to the theatre, they have, in imitation of these epilogues, introduced +in their farewell voluntaries, a sort of music quite foreign to the +design of church-services, to the great prejudice of well-disposed +people. Those fingering gentlemen should be informed, that they ought +to suit their airs to the place and business; and that the musician is +obliged to keep to the text as much as the preacher. For want of this, +I have found by experience a great deal of mischief. For when the +preacher has often, with great piety, and art enough, handled his +subject, and the judicious clerk has with the utmost diligence called +out two staves proper to the discourse, and I have found in myself, +and in the rest of the pew, good thoughts and dispositions, they have +been all in a moment dissipated by a merry jig from the organ loft. +One knows not what further ill effects the epilogues I have been +speaking of may in time produce: but this I am credibly informed of, +that Paul Lorrain[A] has resolved upon a very sudden reformation in +his tragical dramas; and that, at the next monthly performance, he +designs, instead of a penitential psalm, to dismiss his audience with +an excellent new ballad of his own composing. Pray, Sir, do what you +can to put a stop to these growing evils, and you will very much +oblige your humble servant, + +"PHYSIBULUS." + +[Footnote A: At that time ordinary of Newgate; and who, in his +accounts of the convicts executed at Tyburn, generally represented +them as true penitents, and dying very well.] + + + + +No. 341. TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 1712. + + "--Revocate animos, maestumque timorem + Mittite--" + VIRG. AEN.I. 206. + + "Resume your courage, and dismiss your care." + DRYDEN. + + +Having, to oblige my correspondent Physibulus, printed his letter last +Friday, in relation to the new epilogue, he cannot take it amiss, if I +now publish another, which I have just received from a gentleman who +does not agree with him in his sentiments upon that matter. + +"Sir,--I am amazed to find an epilogue attacked in your last Friday's +paper, which has been so generally applauded by the town, and received +such honours as were never before given to any in an English theatre. + +"The audience would not permit Mrs. Oldfield to go off the stage the +first night till she had repeated it twice; the second night the noise +of _ancora_ was as loud as before, and she was again obliged to speak +it twice; the third night it was called for a second time; and, in +short, contrary to all other epilogues, which are dropped after the +third representation of the play, this has already been repeated nine +times. + +"I must own I am the more surprised to find this censure, in +opposition to the whole town, in a paper which has hitherto been +famous for the candour of its criticisms. + +"I can by no means allow your melancholy correspondent, that the +new epilogue is unnatural, because it is gay. If I had a mind to be +learned, I could tell him that the prologue and epilogue were real +parts of the ancient tragedy; but every one knows, that on the British +stage, they are distinct performances by themselves, pieces entirely +detached from the play, and no way essential to it. + +"The moment the play ends, Mrs. Oldfield is no more Andromache, but +Mrs. Oldfield; and though the poet had left Andromache stone-dead upon +the stage, as your ingenious correspondent phrases it, Mrs. Oldfield +might still have spoke a merry epilogue. We have an instance of this +in a tragedy where there is not only a death, but a martyrdom.[A] St. +Catherine was there personated by Nell Gwyn; she lies stone-dead upon +the stage, but, upon those gentlemen's offering to remove her body, +whose business it is to carry off the slain in our English tragedies, +she breaks out into that abrupt beginning of what was a very +ludicrous, but at the same time thought a very good epilogue:-- + + "'Hold: are you mad? you damn'd confounded dog! + I am to rise and speak the epilogue.' + +[Footnote A: "Tyrannic Love; or, the Royal Martyr." By Dryden.] + +"This diverting manner was always practised by Mr. Dryden, who, if he +was not the best writer of tragedies in his time, was allowed by every +one to have the happiest turn for a prologue or an epilogue. The +epilogues to 'Cleomenes,' 'Don Sebastian,' the 'Duke of Guise,' +'Aurengezebe,' and 'Love Triumphant,' are all precedents of this +nature. + +"I might further justify this practice by that excellent epilogue +which was spoken, a few years since, after the tragedy of 'Phaedra and +Hippolitus;'[A] with a great many others, in which the authors have +endeavoured to make the audience merry. If they have not all succeeded +so well as the writer of this, they have however shown that it was not +for want of good will. + +[Footnote A: By Edmund Neal.] + +"I must further observe, that the gaiety of it may be still the more +proper, as it is at the end of a French play; since every one knows +that nation, who are generally esteemed to have as polite a taste as +any in Europe, always close their tragic entertainments with what they +call a _petite pièce_, which is purposely designed to raise mirth, and +send away the audience well pleased. The same person who has supported +the chief character in the tragedy, very often plays the principal +part in the _petite pièce_; so that I have myself seen, at Paris, +Orestes and Lubin acted the same night by the same man. + +"Tragi-comedy, indeed, you have yourself, in a former speculation, +found fault with very justly, because it breaks the tide of the +passions, while they are yet flowing; but this is nothing at all to +the present case, where they have already had their full course. + +"As the new epilogue is written conformably to the practice of our +best poets, so it is not such an one, which, as the Duke of Buckingham +says in his 'Rehearsal,' might serve for any other play; but wholly +rises out of the occurrences of the piece it was composed for. + +"The only reason your mournful correspondent gives against this +facetious epilogue, as he calls it, is, that he has a mind to go home +melancholy. I wish the gentleman may not be more grave than wise. For +my own part, I must confess, I think it very sufficient to have the +anguish of a fictitious piece remain upon me while it is representing; +but I love to be sent home to bed in a good humour. If Physibulus is +however resolved to be inconsolable, and not to have his tears dried +up, he need only continue his old custom, and when he has had his +half-crown's worth of sorrow, slink out before the epilogue begins. + +"It is pleasant enough to hear this tragical genius complaining of the +great mischief Andromache had done him. What was that? Why, she +made him laugh. The poor gentleman's sufferings put me in mind of +Harlequin's case, who was tickled to death. He tells us soon after, +through a small mistake of sorrow for rage, that during the whole +action he was so very sorry, that he thinks he could have attacked +half a score of the fiercest Mohawks in the excess of his grief. I +cannot but look upon it as a happy accident, that a man who is so +bloody-minded in his affliction, was diverted from this fit of +outrageous melancholy. The valour of this gentleman in his distress +brings to one's memory the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance, who +lays about him at such an unmerciful rate in an old romance. I shall +readily grant him that his soul, as he himself says, would have made a +very ridiculous figure, had it quitted the body and descended to the +poetical shades in such an encounter. + +"As to his conceit of tacking a tragic head with a comic tail, in +order to refresh the audience, it is such a piece of jargon, that I +don't know what to make of it. + +"The elegant writer makes a very sudden transition from the playhouse +to the church, and from thence to the gallows. + +"As for what relates to the church, he is of opinion that these +epilogues have given occasion to those merry jigs from the organ-loft, +which have dissipated those good thoughts and dispositions he has +found in himself, and the rest of the pew, upon the singing of two +staves culled out by the judicious and diligent clerk. + +"He fetches his next thought from Tyburn; and seems very apprehensive +lest there should happen any innovations in the tragedies of his +friend Paul Lorrain. + +"In the mean time, Sir, this gloomy writer, who is so mightily +scandalised at a gay epilogue after a serious play, speaking of +the fate of those unhappy wretches who are condemned to suffer an +ignominious death by the justice of our laws, endeavours to make +the reader merry on so improper an occasion by those poor burlesque +expressions of tragical dramas and monthly performances.--I am, +Sir, with great respect, your most obedient, most humble servant, + +"PHILOMEDES." + + + + +ON DRAMATIC CRITICS + +(_Addison in the "Spectator_") + +No. 592. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1714. + + "--Studium sine divite veni." + HOR. ARS POET. 409. + + "Art without a vein." + ROSCOMMON. + + +I look upon the playhouse as a world within itself. They have lately +furnished the middle region of it with a new set of meteors, in order +to give the sublime to many modern tragedies. I was there last winter +at the first rehearsal of the new thunder,[A] which is much more deep +and sonorous than any hitherto made use of. They have a Salmonus +behind the scenes who plays it off with great success. Their +lightnings are made to flash more briskly than heretofore; their +clouds are also better furbelowed, and more voluminous; not to mention +a violent storm locked up in a great chest, that is designed for the +"Tempest." They are also provided with above a dozen showers of snow, +which, as I am informed, are the plays of many unsuccessful poets +artificially cut and shredded for that use. Mr. Rymer's "Edgar" is to +fall in snow, at the next acting of "King Lear," in order to heighten, +or rather to alleviate, the distress of that unfortunate prince; and +to serve by way of decoration to a piece which that great critic has +written against. + +[Footnote A: Mr. Dennis's new and approved method of making thunder. +Dennis had contrived this thunder for the advantage of his tragedy of +"Appius and Virginia"; the players highly approved of it, and it is +the same that is used at the present day. Notwithstanding the effect +of this thunder, however, the play was coldy received, and laid aside. +Some nights after, Dennis being in the pit at the representation of +"Macbeth," and hearing the thunder made use of, arose from his seat in +a violent passion, exclaiming with an oath, that that was his thunder. +"See (said he) how these rascals use me: they will not let my play +run, and yet they steal my thunder."--"Notes on the _Spectator_."] + +I do not indeed wonder that the actors should be such professed +enemies to those among our nation who are commonly known by the name +of critics, since it is a rule among these gentlemen to fall upon a +play, not because it is ill written, but because it takes. Several of +them lay it down as a maxim, that whatever dramatic performance has a +long run, must of necessity be good for nothing; as though the first +precept in poetry were "not to please." Whether this rule holds good +or not, I shall leave to the determination of those who are better +judges than myself; if it does, I am sure it tends very much to the +honour of those gentlemen who have established it; few of their pieces +having been disgraced by a run of three days, and most of them being +so exquisitely written, that the town would never give them more than +one night's hearing. + +I have great esteem for a true critic, such as Aristotle and Longinus +among the Greeks; Horace and Quintilian among the Romans; Boileau and +Dacier among the French. But it is our misfortune, that some, who set +up for professed critics among us, are so stupid, that they do not +know how to put ten words together with elegance or common propriety; +and withal so illiterate, that they have no taste of the learned +languages, and therefore criticise upon old authors only at second +hand. They judge of them by what others have written, and not by any +notions they have of the authors themselves. The words unity, action, +sentiment and diction, pronounced with an air of authority, give them +a figure among unlearned readers, who are apt to believe they are very +deep because they are unintelligible. The ancient critics are full +of the praises of their contemporaries; they discover beauties which +escaped the observation of the vulgar, and very often find out reasons +for palliating and excusing such little slips and oversights as were +committed in the writings of eminent authors. On the contrary, most +of the smatterers in criticism, who appear among us, make it their +business to vilify and depreciate every new production that gains +applause, to descry imaginary blemishes, and to prove, by farfetched +arguments, that what pass for beauties in any celebrated piece are +faults and errors. In short, the writings of these critics, compared +with those of the ancients, are like the works of the sophists +compared with those of the old philosophers. + +Envy and cavil are the natural fruits of laziness and ignorance; which +was probably the reason that in the heathen mythology Momus is said +to be the son of Nox and Somnus, of darkness and sleep. Idle men, who +have not been at the pains to accomplish or distinguish themselves, +are very apt to detract from others; as ignorant men are very subject +to decry those beauties in a celebrated work which they have not eyes +to discover. Many of our sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the +name of critics, are the genuine descendants of these two illustrious +ancestors. They are often led into these numerous absurdities in which +they daily instruct the people, by not considering that, first, there +is sometimes a greater judgment shown in deviating from the rules of +art than in adhering to them; and, secondly, that there is more beauty +in the works of a great genius, who is ignorant of all the rules of +art, than in the works of a little genius, who not only knows but +scrupulously observes them. + +First, we may often take notice of men who are perfectly acquainted +with all the rules of good writing, and notwithstanding choose to +depart from them on extraordinary occasions. I could give instances +out of all the tragic writers of antiquity who have shown their +judgment in this particular; and purposely receded from an established +rule of the drama, when it has made way for a much higher beauty +than the observation of such a rule would have been. Those who have +surveyed the noblest pieces of architecture and statuary, both ancient +and modern, know very well that there are frequent deviations from +art in the works of the greatest masters, which have produced a much +nobler effect than a more accurate and exact way of proceeding could +have done. This often arises from what the Italians call the _gusto +grande_ in these arts, which is what we call the sublime in writing. + +In the next place, our critics do not seem sensible that there is more +beauty in the works of a great genius, who is ignorant of the rules of +art, than in those of a little genius who knows and observes them. It +is of those men of genius that Terrence speaks in opposition to the +little artificial cavillers of his time: + + "Quorum aemulari expotat negligentiam + Potius quam istorum obscuram diligentiam." + AND. PROL. 20. + +"Whose negligence he would rather imitate, than these men's obscure +diligence." + +A critic may have the same consolation in the ill success of his play +as Dr. South tells us a physician has at the death of a patient, +that he was killed _secundum artem_. Our inimitable Shakespeare is a +stumbling-block to the whole tribe of these rigid critics. Who would +not rather read one of his plays, where there is not a single rule of +the stage observed, than any production of a modern critic where there +is not one of them violated![A] Shakespeare was indeed born with all +the seeds of poetry, and may be compared to the stone in Pyrrhus's +ring, which, as Pliny tells us, had the figure of Apollo and the nine +Muses in the veins of it, produced by the spontaneous hand of Nature +without any help from art. + +[Footnote A: With all his fondness for classic models, Addison breaks +away from conventionality of form in this essay, and pays his tribute +to the genius of Shakespeare. But critical Joe could never forget the +bard's so-called "faults" of construction.] + + + + +THEATRICAL PROPERTY + +(_Steele in "The Tatler," No. 42_) + + +It is now twelve of the clock at noon, and no mail come in; therefore +I am not without hopes that the town will allow me the liberty +which my brother news-writers take in giving them what may be for +information in another kind, and indulge me in doing an act of +friendship, by publishing the following account of goods and +moveables. + +This is to give notice, that a magnificent palace, with great +variety of gardens, statues, and water works, may be bought cheap in +Drury-lane; where there are likewise several castles, to be disposed +of, very delightfully situated; as also groves, woods, forests, +fountains, and country-seats, with very pleasant prospects on all +sides of them; being the moveables of Christopher Rich, Esquire,[A] +who is breaking up house-keeping, and has many curious pieces of +furniture to dispose of, which may be seen between the hours of six +and ten in the evening. + +[Footnote A: This essay was written (July, 1709) at the time that +Drury Lane was closed, by order of the Lord Chamberlain.] + + +THE INVENTORY. + +Spirits of right Nantz brandy, for lambent flames and apparitions. + +Three bottles and a half of lightning. + +One shower of snow in the whitest French paper. + +Two showers of a browner sort. + +A sea, consisting of a dozen large waves; the tenth bigger than +ordinary, and a little damaged. + +A dozen and a half of clouds, trimmed with black, and well +conditioned. + +A rainbow, a little faded. + +A set of clouds after the French mode, streaked with lightning and +furbelowed. + +A new moon, something decayed. + +A pint of the finest Spanish wash, being all that is left of two +hogsheads sent over last winter. + +A coach very finely gilt, and little used, with a pair of dragons, to +be sold cheap. + +A setting-sun, a pennyworth. + +An imperial mantle, made for Cyrus the Great, and worn by Julius +Caesar, Bajazet, King Harry the Eighth, and Signor Valentini. + +A basket-hilted sword, very convenient to carry milk in. + +Roxana's night-gown. + +Othello's handkerchief. + +The imperial robes of Xerxes, never worn but once. + +A wild boar killed by Mrs. Tofts[A] and Dioclesian. + +[Footnote A: A favourite singer of the day.] + +A serpent to sting Cleopatra. + +A mustard-bowl to make thunder with. + +Another of a bigger sort, by Mr. D----'s[A] directions, little used. + +[Footnote A: John Dennis, the critic.] + +Six elbow-chairs, very expert in country dances, with six flower-pots +for their partners. + +The whiskers of a Turkish Pasha. + +The complexion of a murderer in a band-box; consisting of a large +piece of burnt cork, and a coal-black peruke. + +A suit of clothes for a ghost, viz., a bloody shirt, a doublet +curiously pinked, and a coat with three great eyelet-holes upon the +breast. + +A bale of red Spanish wool. + +Modern plots, commonly known by the name of trapdoors, ladders of +ropes, vizard-masques, and tables with broad carpets over them. + +Three oak-cudgels, with one of crab-tree; all bought for the use of +Mr. Pinkethman.[A] + +[Footnote A: The comedian.] + +Materials for dancing; as masques, castanets, and a ladder of ten +rounds. + +Aurengezebe's scymitar, made by Will Brown in Piccadilly. + +A plume of feathers, never used but by Oedipus and the Earl of Essex. + +There are also swords, halbards, sheep-hooks, cardinals' hats, +turbans, drums, gallipots, a gibbet, a cradle, a rack, a cart-wheel, +an altar, an helmet, a back-piece, a breast-plate, a bell, a tub, and +a jointed baby. + + + + +ACTORS AND AUDIENCE. + +(_From Cibber's "Apology_") + + +Among our many necessary reformations, what not a little preserved to +us the regard of our auditors was the decency of our clear stage, from +whence we had now for many years shut out those idle gentlemen who +seemed more delighted to be pretty objects themselves than capable of +any pleasure from the play; who took their daily stands where they +might best elbow the actor, and come in for their share of the +auditor's attention. In many a laboured scene of the wannest humour +and of the most affecting passion I have seen the best actors +disconcerted, while these buzzing muscatos have been fluttering round +their eyes and ears. How was it possible an actor, so embarrassed, +should keep his impatience from entering into that different temper +which his personated character might require him to be master of? + +Future actors may perhaps wish I would set this grievance in a +stronger light; and, to say the truth, where auditors are ill-bred, it +cannot well be expected that actors should be polite. Let me therefore +show how far an artist in any science is apt to be hurt by any sort of +inattention to his performance. + +While the famous Corelli,[A] at Rome, was playing some musical +composition of his own to a select company in the private apartment of +his patron-Cardinal, he observed, in the heighth of his harmony, +his Eminence was engaging in a detached conversation, upon which +he suddenly stopt short and gently laid down his instrument. The +Cardinal, surprised at the unexpected cessation, asked him if a string +was broke? To which Corelli, in an honest conscience of what was due +to his musick, reply'd, "No, Sir, I was only afraid I enterrupted +business." His Eminence, who knew that a genius could never shew +itself to advantage where it had not its regards, took this reproof in +good part, and broke off his conversation to hear the whole concerto +played over again. + +[Footnote A: Arcangelo Corelli, the "father of modern instrumental +music."] + +Another story will let us see what effect a mistaken offence of this +kind had upon the French theatre, which was told me by a gentleman of +the long robe, then at Paris, and who was himself the innocent author +of it. At the tragedy of "Zaire," while the celebrated Mademoiselle +Gossin[A] was delivering a soliloquy, this gentleman was seized with +a sudden fit of coughing, which gave the actress some surprise and +interruption; and his fit increasing, she was forced to stand silent +so long that it drew the eyes of the uneasy audience upon him, when a +French gentleman, leaning forward to him, asked him, If this actress +had given him any particular offence, that he took so publick an +occasion to resent it? The English gentleman, in the utmost surprise, +assured him, So far from it, that he was a particular admirer of +her performance; that his malady was his real misfortune, and if he +apprehended any return of it, he would rather quit his seat than +disoblige either the actress or the audience. + +[Footnote A: Jeanne, Catherine Gossin, of the Comédie Française.] + +This publick decency in their theatre I have myself seen carried so +far that a gentleman in their second Loge, or middle-gallery, being +observed to sit forward himself while a lady sate behind him, a loud +number of voices called out to him from the pit, "_Place à la +Dame! Place à la Dame_!" When the person so offending, either not +apprehending the meaning of the clamour, or possibly being some John +Trott who feared no man alive, the noise was continued for several +minutes; nor were the actors, though ready on the stage, suffered to +begin the play till this unbred person was laughed out of his seat, +and had placed the lady before him. + +Whether this politeness observed at plays may be owing to their clime, +their complexion, or their government, is of no great consequence; +but if it is to be acquired, methinks it is a pity our accomplished +countrymen, who every year import so much of this nation's gawdy +garniture, should not, in this long course of our commerce with them, +have brought over a little of their theatrical good-breeding too. + + + + +INDEX + + + Abington, Mrs. + Actors and audience, Colley Cibber on + Addison, Joseph + his "Cato" + Anne, Queen + Anne's reign, Life in Queen + Ashbury, Joseph + Ashton's "Reign of Queen Anne" + Aston, Tony + Attorneys of Queen Anne's day + + Baggs, Zachary + Baker of Dublin + Barry, Spranger, + Mrs. Spranger + Barry, Mrs. Elizabeth + Bartholomew Fair + Bath life + "Beaux' Stratagem," Farquhar's + Bellchambers, Edmund + Bertie, Miss Dye + Betterton, Thomas + Blackmore, Dr. (Sir Richard) + Boileau + Bolingbroke, Lord + Booth, Barton + Mrs. Barton + _see also_ Santlow + Boswell, James + Bowman, an actor + Bracegirdle, Anne + Bradshaw, Mrs. + Brett, Colonel + Miss Anne + Broschi, Carlo (Farinelli) + Budgell, Eustace + Bullock, an actor + Burney, Dr. + "Busiris," Young's + + Cadogan, Charles Sloane, 1st Earl + Campbell, Thomas + "Careless Husband," Cibber's + Cat, Christopher + Cat-calls + "Cato," Addison's + Centlivre, Mrs. + her "Perplexed Lovers" + Centlivre, Mr. + Charles II., King + Chener, Mons. + Chetwood, W.R. + "Christian Hero, The," Steele's + Church and stage + Church music and the theatre + Churchill, General (Marlborough's nephew) + Churchill, Colonel (Oldfield's son) + Churchill, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough + Churchill, Mary, Countess of Cadogan + Cibber, Caius Gabriel + Cibber, Colley + "Cibber, Apology for the Life of" + Cibber, Theophilus + Clive, Mrs. + Coffee-houses of Addison's day + Collier, William + Colman's "Random Records" + Congreve + Corelli, Arcangelo + Costumes, Stage + Courthorpe's "Addison" + Covent Garden Theatre + Craggs, Mr. Secretary + Crawley, the showman + Critics, Addison on dramatic + Crown, John + Cuzzoni, Francesca + + Davenant, Alexander + Davies, T. + Defoe, Daniel + Delany, Mrs. + Dennis, John, + "Essay on the Operas" + Diction of the eighteenth century + "Distressed Mother, The," Philips' + Dod, Benjamin + Dogget, Thomas + Doran, Dr. + Dorset, Earl of + Dorset, Garden Theatre + Downes, the prompter + Drama and the Restoration + Dramatic critics (Addison) + Dramatic writings, old and new + Drury Lane Theatre + Drury Lane, + revolt of Betterton + another exodus + riot + Drury Lane, Company + Dryden + "Duke of York's Company" + D'Urfey's "Western Lass" + + "Echoes of the Playhouse" + Elrington, Thomas + Epilogues, Comic (The _Spectator_) + Estcourt, Dick + Eugene, Prince + Evans, John + + "Fair Quaker of Deal," Shadwell's + Farinelli + Farquhar, Capt. George + Faustina, Bordoni Hasse + Fielding, Henry + Fitzgerald, Percy + Fontaine, Monsieur de la + Foote, Samuel + "Funeral, or Grief à la Mode, The," Steele's + Funeral customs, old time + + Gambling women + Garrick, David + Garth, Dr. + Genest, P. + George I., King + Gildon, Charles, + Gossin, Jeane Catherine + Gregory, Mr. + Griffith, Thomas + Gwyne, Nell + + Habits of society + Halifax, Lord + Haymarket Theatre, + restricted to operas + "Hearts, The King of," Maynwaring's + Hendon, Heywoodhill + Henley, Mr. + Hertford, Countess of + Hill, Aaron + Horton, Mrs. + Howard, Bronson + Hoyt, Mr. + Hughes, Mr. + Hulet, Charles + + Ibsen + "Inconstant, The," Farquhar's + Ingolsby, General + Italian opera + + "Jane Shore," Rowe's + Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster + Johnson, Dr. Samuel + Johnstone, Drury Lane machinist + Jones, Henry Arthur + Jonson, Benjamin + + Keen, Theophilus + Killigrew, Charles + "King's Company, The" + Kit-Cat Club + Knight, Mrs. + Knipp, Mrs. + + Lambro, Miss + Lecouvreur, French actress + Leigh, Francis + Lincoln's Inn Field Theatre of 1695, + re-opened + "Lives of the Poets," Cibber's + Lorrain, Rev. Paul + Lowe, R.W. + + Macclesfield, Anne, 1st Countess of + Macklin + "Make-up," Art of + Marlborough, _see_ Churchill + Master of the Revels, office of + Maynwaring, Arthur, + Maynwaring, Mr. (Oldfield's son) + "Milk White Flag, A," Mr. Hoyt's + Mills, John + Misson's, Henre, "Memoirs" + Mist, Nathaniel + _Mist's Weekly Journal_ + Mitford, M.R. + Mitre Tavern + Molière + Montagu, Captain + Morley's "Notes on The _Spectator_" + Mountford, Will + Mountford, Mrs., _see_ Verbruggen + Mountford, Susan + + Neal, Edmund, "Phaedra and Hippolitus" + "Non-Juror, The," Cibber's + Norris, an actor + + Oldfield, Captain + Oldfield, Mrs. + Oldfield, Anne (Nance) + birth + meets Farquhar + introduced to Vanbrugh, + joins the stage + Bath _début_ + first stage triumph + Cibber's "Careless Husband" her success + deportment + as Sylvia in Farquhar's "Recruiting Officer" + leaves Drury Lane for the Haymarket + supplants Mrs. Bracegirdle + salary at the Haymarket + ---- and at Drury Lane + as Andromache in "Distressed Mother" + plays Marcia in "Cato" + meets Alexander Pope + tragic parts + rivals produce a riot, her triumph + as Jane Shore + adheres to Drury Lane + takes Sophonisba, praised by Thomson + meridian lustre + mistress of A. Maynwaring + personal attractions + accepts protection of Marlborough's nephew + received at Court + her natural children + ancestress of Earls of Cadogan + sympathy for Richard Savage + intercedes for his life + mourned by Savage + contemporaries + her equipage + sweetness and common sense + retains her bloom + captivating as Lady Townley + moved in polite circles + ill-health, dies in Lower Grosvenor Street + laid in State in the Jerusalem Chamber + interred in Westminster Abbey + Oldfield, Anne, elegy by Richard Savage + Opera, Italian + Operatic singers + Oxford and the drama + actors contribute to St. Mary's restoration fund + + Page, Francis + Pepy's Diary + "Perplexed Lovers, The," Centlivre's + Philips, Ambrose + Players in Queen Anne's time + Pope, Alexander + Porter, Mistress + Powell, George + Prince George of Denmark + Pritchard, Sir William + "Provoked Husband, The," Vanbrugh and Cibber's + + Radcliffe, Dr. + "Recruiting Officer, The," Farquhar's + Rich, Christopher + Rich, John + Rivers, Lord + Rogers, Mrs. + Rowe, Nicholas + Russell Court Chapel + Ryan, Lacy + + Sandridge, Dean + Santlow, Hester + _see also_ Booth, Mrs. + Saunders, Mistress + Savage, Richard + Schlegel, Augustus Wm. + "Scornful Lady, The" + Shadwell, Thomas + Sheridan, Richard Brinsley + Side-shows + "Sir Courtly Nice," Crown's + "Sir Thomas Overbury," Savage's + Skipworth, Sir Thomas + Smith, an actor + _Spectator, The_ + Stage armies + Stanyan, T. + Steele, Sir Richard + Strolling players + Swift, Dean + Swiney, Owen + + "Tamerlane," N. Rowe's + "Tartuffe," Molière's + Theatre and church + and playgoers + Theatrical dress + claptrap, Addison on + property, Sir R. Steele on + Theatricals began, Hour + Thomas, Augustus + Thomson's "Sophonisba" + Thurmond, John + Toasts + Toasting glasses + Tofts, Mrs. + Tonson, Jacob + Trumbull, Sir William + + Vanbrugh, Sir John + Verbruggen, Mrs. + Voltaire + Voss, Mrs. + + Walker, an actor + Walpole, Horace + Walpole, Sir Robert + Ward, Ned + Wig, cost of a full-bottomed + Wilks, Robert + William III., King + Williams, Joseph + Woffington, Peg + "Wonder, The," Mrs. Centlivre's + Woollen shrouds + + Yates, Mistress + Young's, Dr., "Busiris" + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PALMY DAYS OF NANCE OLDFIELD*** + + +******* This file should be named 11717-8.txt or 11717-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/7/1/11717 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** diff --git a/old/11717-8.zip b/old/11717-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..53d50fc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11717-8.zip diff --git a/old/11717.txt b/old/11717.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..910c443 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11717.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8782 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield, by Edward +Robins + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield + +Author: Edward Robins + +Release Date: March 25, 2004 [eBook #11717] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PALMY DAYS OF NANCE OLDFIELD*** + + +E-text prepared by the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading +Team + + + +THE PALMY DAYS OF NANCE OLDFIELD + +BY + +EDWARD ROBINS + +WITH PORTRAITS + +1898 + + + + + + +[Illustration: Mrs. Oldfield the celebrated Comedian] + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. FROM TAVERN TO THEATRE + II. AN ENTRE-ACTE + III. A BELLE OF METTLE + IV. MANAGERIAL WICKEDNESS + V. A DEAD HERO + VI. IN TRAGIC PATHS + VII. NANCE AT HOME + VIII. THE MIMIC WORLD + IX. "GRIEF A LA MODE" + X. THE BARTON BOOTHS + XI. THE FADING OF A STAR + APPENDIX + + + + +PORTRAITS + + +Frontispiece: Mrs. Anne Oldfield + +Title-page: Mrs. Oldfield in the Character of Fair Rosamond + +Colley Cibber in the Character of Sir Novelty Fashion + +Robert Wilks + +William Congreve + +Mrs. Anne Bracegirdle + +Mrs. Bracegirdle as the "Sultaness" + +Joseph Addison + +Mrs. Anne Oldfield + +Mr. Mills, Mrs. Porter, Mr. Cibber + +Sir John Vanbrugh + +Sir Richard Steele + +Barton Booth + + + + +THE PALMY DAYS OF NANCE OLDFIELD + + + + +CHAPTER I + +FROM TAVERN TO THEATRE + + +"Out of question, you were born in a merry hour," says Don Pedro to +the blithesome heroine of "Much Ado About Nothing." + +"No, sure, my lord," answers Beatrice. "My mother cried; but then +there was a star danced, and under that was I born." + +Surely a star, possibly Venus, must have danced gaily on a certain +night in the year of grace 1683, when the wife of Captain Oldfield, +gentleman by birth and Royal Guardsman by profession, brought into the +busy, unfeeling world of London a pretty mite of a girl. 'Twas a year +of grace indeed, for the little stranger happened to be none other +than Anne Oldfield, whose elegance of manner, charm of voice and +action and loveliness of face would in time make her the most +delightful comedienne of her day. Perhaps she found no instant +welcome, this diminutive maiden who came smiling into existence laden +with a message from the sunshine; her father was richer in ancestry +than guineas, and the arrival of another daughter may have seemed an +honour hardly worth the bestowal.[A] But Thalia laughed, as well she +might, and even the stern features of Melpomene relaxed a little in +witnessing the birth of one who would prove almost as wondrous in +tragedy, when she so minded, as she was fascinating in the gentler +phases of her art. + +[Footnote A: According to Edmund Bellchambers, Anne Oldfield "would +have possessed a tolerable fortune, had not her father, a captain in +the army, expended it at a very early period."] + +Yet the laughter of Thalia and the unbending of her sister Muse were +hardly likely to make much impression in the Oldfield household, where +money had more admirers than mythology, and so we are not surprised to +learn that, with the death of the gallant captain, this "incomparable +sweet girl," who would ere long reconcile even a supercilious +Frenchman to the English stage, had to seek her living as a +seamstress. How she sewed a bodice or hemmed a petticoat we know not, +nor do we care; it is far more interesting to be told that, though +only in her early teens, the toiler with the needle found her greatest +recreation in reading Beaumont and Fletcher's plays. The modern young +woman, be her station high or low, would take no pleasure in such a +literary occupation, but in the days of Nance Oldfield to con the +pages of Beaumont and Fletcher was considered a privilege rather than +a duty. Then, again, the little seamstress had a soul above threads +and thimbles; her heart was with the players, and we can imagine her +running off some idle afternoon to peep slyly into Drury Lane Theatre, +or perhaps walk over into Lincoln's Inn Fields, where the noble +Betterton and his companions had formed a rival company. The +performance over, she hurries to the Mitre Tavern, in St. James's +Market, and here she is sure of a warm welcome, as is but natural, +since the Mrs. Voss who rules the destinies of the hostelry is Anne's +elder sister[A]. Here the girl loves to spend those rare moments of +leisure, reading aloud the comedies of long ago and dreaming of the +future; and here, too, it is that dashing Captain Farquhar listens in +amazement as she recites the "Scornful Lady." + +[Footnote A: According to one authority Mrs. Voss was Anne's aunt. We +adhere, however, to Dr. Doran's account of the relationship.] + +George Farquhar--how his name conjures up a vision of all that +is brilliant, rakish, and bibulous in the expiring days of the +seventeenth century! It is easy to picture him, as he stands near +the congenial bar of the tavern, entranced by the liquid tones and +marvellous expression of Nance's youthful voice. He has a whimsical, +good-humoured face, perhaps showing the rubicund effects of steady +drinking (as whose features did not in those halcyon times of merry +nights and tired mornings?), and a general air of loving the world and +its pleasures, despite a secret suspicion that a hard-hearted bailiff +may be lying in wait around the corner. His flowing wig may seem a +trifle old, the embroidery on his once resplendent vest look sadly +tarnished, and the cloth of his skirted coat exhibit the unmistakable +symptoms of age, but, for all that, Captain Farquhar stands forth an +honourable, high-spirited gentleman. And gentleman George Farquhar +is both by birth and bearing. Was he not the son of genteel parents +living in the North of Ireland, and did he not receive a polite +education at the University in Dublin? So polite, indeed, has his +training been that he is already the author of that wonderful "Love +and a Bottle," a comedy wherein he amusingly holds the mirror up to +English vices, including his own. And, speaking of vices, he can now +look back to those salad days when he wrote verses of unimpeachable +morality, setting forth, among other sentiments, that-- + + "The pliant Soul of erring Youth + Is, like soft Wax, or moisten'd Clay, + Apt to receive all heav'nly Truth, + Or yield to Tyrant Ill the Sway. + Shun Evil in your early Years, + And Manhood may to Virtue rise; + But he who, in his Youth, appears + A Fool, in Age will ne'er be wise." + +Poor fellow! He never will be wise in the material sense; he will trip +gracefully through life with more brains and bonhomie than worldly +discretion, yet eclipsing many steadier companions by writing the +"Recruiting Officer" and other sparkling plays, not forgetting "The +Inconstant," which will last even unto the end of the nineteenth +century. At present--and 'tis the present rather than the past or +future that most concerns the captain--he holds a commission in the +army, which he is foolish enough to relinquish later on, and he has +come to the very sensible conclusion that he is far more at home in +the writing of comedies than the acting therein. For he has been +on the stage, and precipitately retired therefrom after accidently +wounding a fellow performer[A]. In the course of two or three years +Farquhar will make a desperate attempt to be mercenary by marrying a +girl whom he supposes to be wealthy; he will find out his mistake, and +then, like the thoroughbred that he is, will go on cherishing her as +though she had brought him a ton of rent-rolls. When he is dead and +gone, Chetwood, the veteran prompter of Drury Lane, will tell +us, quaintly enough, how "it was affirm'd, by some of his near +Acquaintance, his unfortunate Marriage shortened his Days; for his +Wife (by whom he had two Daughters), through the Reputation of a great +Fortune, trick'd him into Matrimony. This was chiefly the Fault of her +Love, which was so violent that she was resolved to use all Arts to +gain him. Tho' some Husbands, in such a Case, would have proved _mere +Husbands_, yet he was so much charm'd with her Love and Understanding, +that he liv'd very happy with her. Therefore when I say an unfortunate +Marriage, with other Circumstances, conducted to the shortening of his +Days; I only mean that his Fortune, being too slender to support a +Family, led him into a great many Cares and Inconveniences." + +[Footnote A: Farquhar was playing in "The Indian Emperor" being cast +for Guyomar, a character whose pleasant duty it is to kill Vasquez, +the Spanish general. This particular Guyomar forgot to change his +sword for a theatre foil, and in the subsequent encounter gave Vasquez +too realistic a punishment]. + +No one would have appreciated the unconscious humour of Chetwood's +assertion about "some husbands" more than Farquhar himself. One +trembles to think, by the way what a "mere husband" must have been in +the reigns of William or Anne. + +In the meantime we are almost forgetting young Mistress Oldfield, who +is still reading the "Scornful Lady," and putting new life and grace +into lines which nowadays seem a bit academic and musty. The captain +has not forgotten her, however; on the contrary, he is so charmed with +what he hears that he makes some flimsy excuse to get into that room +behind the bar whence the silvery voice proceeds. There he first meets +Nance, surrounded by what audience we know not, and is struck dumb at +the lovely figure standing out in bashful relief, as it were, against +a background of wine bottles and ale tankards. There is an awkward +pause, no doubt, and if the girl of fifteen comes to a sudden stop in +her recital, Farquhar is no less embarrassed on his part. + +The handsome, rosy face of a strapping tavern wench would not have +startled him, but he was not gazing upon a bouncing serving maid or +the hoydenish daughter of a prosperous innkeeper. He beheld a creature +in all the gentle bloom of highbred beauty--tall, well-formed, and +radiating a sort of natural elegance, with a fine-shaped, expressive +face, to which great speaking eyes and a mouth half pensive, half +smiling, lent an air of rare distinction. These were the eyes which +in after years Anne would half close in a roguish way, as when, for +instance, she meditated a brilliant stroke as Lady Betty Modish, and +then, opening them defiantly, would make them glisten with the spirit +of twinkling comedy. These were the eyes, too, which would shine forth +such unutterable love when she played Cleopatra that one might well +pardon the peccadilloes of poor Antony. But as yet there was no +thought of drooping eyelids or amorous glances; all was natural, and +nothing more so than the coyness of Nance upon seeing the author of +"Love and a Bottle." + +Captain Farquhar had never before beheld this seamstress from King +Street, Westminster, but she must have been familiar with the handsome +figure of one who had drunk many a brimming glass at the Mitre Tavern. +Thus, when he made bold to praise her elocution, she was not offended, +and, although she ignored his request to continue the "Scornful Lady," +Anne proved sufficiently mistress of the interruption to astonish the +intruder by her "discourse and sprightly wit." That innate breeding, +of which no amount of poverty could deprive her, came to the surface, +to show that a woman of quality is none the worse for a surprise. +Farquhar, bowing low with a grace that made his faded clothes seem the +pink of fashion, poured forth a torrent of flowery compliments, which +became all the stronger when he heard that the girl knew Beaumont and +Fletcher nearly by heart. She must have blushed, looking prettier than +ever, as the visitor went on; and how that young heart did leap as +he predicted for her a glorious future on the stage! The stage! the +_Ultima Thule_ of all her hopes! The very idea of acting filled her +head with a thousand bewildering fancies, and, as she told Chetwood in +after years, "I longed to be at it, and only wanted a little decent +intreaties." + +The decent intreaties were forthcoming. Nance's mother, who evidently +rejoiced in a prophetic spirit not given to all parents, strongly +agreed with Farquhar's opinion that the young lady should try a +theatrical career, and the upshot of the whole episode was that +Captain Vanbrugh took an interest in the newly-found jewel. This was a +high honour. Vanbrugh had not yet made for himself a reputation as an +architect by building Blenheim Castle for the Marlboroughs, nor had +he changed his title of Captain for Sir John; but he was a great +man, nevertheless, a successful dramatist and a boon companion of +Christopher Rich, manager of Drury Lane. When the enthusiastic +Farquhar sounded the praises of Anne Oldfield the future Sir John +quickly repaired to the sign of the Mitre, with which, no doubt, he +was already familiar, and met the young enchantress of that historic +little room behind the bar. The arrival of this second and more +distinguished captain was evidently the signal for a family council. +We can see them all--Nance, glowing with excitement, her Brahmin-like, +aristocratic beauty heightened by a dash of natural colour, quite +different from the rouge she might use later; Mrs. Voss, sleepy, +comfortable, and well pleased; and Mrs. Oldfield, full of importance +and maternal solicitude. Vanbrugh, with his good-humoured smile and +military bearing, talks in a fatherly way to the daughter, is deeply +impressed with her many attractions, and is not sorry to learn that +her ambition is all for comedy. He promises to use his good offices +with Mr. Rich to have her enrolled as a member of the Drury Lane +company, keeps his word, too--something for a gentleman to do in the +year 1699--and soon has the satisfaction of seeing his new protegee +hobnobbing with Mrs. Verbruggen, Wilks, Cibber, and other players of +the house, while drawing fifteen shillings a week for the privilege. + +To hobnob, receive a few shillings, and do next to nothing on the +stage does not seem a glorious beginning for our heroine, but think +of the inestimable luxury of brushing up against Colley Cibber. This +remarkable man, who would be in turn actor, manager, playwright, and a +pretty bad Poet Laureate before death would put an extinguisher on +his prolific muses, had at first no exalted opinion of the newcomer's +powers. + +"In the year 1699," he writes in that immortal biography of his,[A] +"Mrs. Oldfield was first taken into the house, where she remain'd +about a twelvemonth, almost a mute and unheeded, 'till Sir John +Vanbrugh, who first recommended her, gave her the part of Alinda in +the 'Pilgrim' revis'd. This gentle character happily became that want +of confidence which is inseparable from young beginners, who, without +it, seldom arrive to any excellence. Notwithstanding, I own I was then +so far deceiv'd in my opinion of her, that I thought she had little +more in her person that appeared necessary to the forming a good +actress; for she set out with so extraordinary a diffidence, that it +kept her too despondingly down to a formal, plain, (not to say)flat +manner of speaking." + +[Footnote A: "An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber."] + +How strange it seems, as we peer back behind the scenes of history, +to think of a theatrical _debutante_ rejoicing in an extraordinary +diffidence. "Rather a cynical remark, isn't it?" the reader may ask. +Well, perhaps it is, but these are piping times of advertising, when +even genius has been known to employ a press agent. + +Nance Oldfield may have been almost mute for a twelvemonth, yet more +than a few feminine novices, Anno Domino 1898, would never be +content to remain silent; not only must they make a noise behind the +footlights, but they feel it incumbent to be heard in the newspapers +as well. Any dramatic editor could tell a weary tale of the +importunities of a progressive young lady who wants to enlighten +an aching public at least six times a week as to the number of her +dresses, the colour of her hair, and the attention of her admirers. +There is a blessed consolation in all this: the female with the +trousseau, the champagned locks and the notoriety lasts no longer +than the butterfly, and her place is soon taken by the girl who never +bothers about the paragraphs, because she is sure to get them. + +To return to the more congenial subject of Oldfield, it is strange +that so shrewd a Thespian as Cibber (who seems to have been clever in +all things but poetry) was so long in coming to a real appreciation of +her genius. He is manly enough to confess that not even the silvery +tone of that honeyed voice could, "'till after some time incline my +ear to any hope in her favour." "But public approbation," he tells us, +"is the warm weather of a theatrical plant, which will soon bring it +forward to whatever perfection nature has design'd it. However, Mrs. +Oldfield (perhaps for want of fresh parts) seem'd to come but slowly +forward 'till the year 1703." So slowly had she come forward indeed, +that in 1702, Gildon, a now forgotten critic and dramatist, included +her among the "meer Rubbish that ought to be swept off the stage with +the Filth and Dust."[A] Time has avenged the actress for this slight; +who, excepting the student of theatrical history, remembers Gildon? + +[Footnote A: From the "Comparison Between the Two Stages."] + +What is more to the purpose, Nance was able to avenge herself in the +flesh, only a few months after these contemptuous lines had been +penned. It happened at Bath, in the summer of 1703, and the story of +her triumph, brief as it is, sounds quaint and pretty, as it comes +down to us laden with a thousand suggestions of fashionable life in +the reign of Queen Anne--a life made up of gossip and cards, drinking, +gaming, patches and powder, fine clothes, full perriwigs and empty +heads. What a picturesque lot of people there must have been at the +great English spa that season, all anxious to get a glimpse of her +plump majesty, who was staying there, and all willing enough to do +anything except to test the waters or the baths from which the place +first acquired fame. They were all there, the pretty maids and +wrinkled matrons, the young rakes of twenty, ready for a frolic, and +the old rakes of thirty too weary to do much more than go to the +theatre and cry out, "Damme, this is a damn'd play." Then the +children, who were always in the way, and the aged fathers of families +who liked to swear at the dandified airs and newly imported French +manners of their sons. And such sons as some of them were too--smart +fellows, of whom the beau described in "The Careless Husband," may be +taken as an example: one "that's just come to a small estate, and a +great perriwig--he that sings himself among the women--he won't speak +to a gentleman when a lord's in company. You always see him with a +cane dangling at his button, his breast open, no gloves, one eye +tuck'd under his hat, and a toothpick." + +What of the belles of the Bath? They seem to have been much after the +fashion of their modern sisters, with their harmless little vanities, +their love of expensive finery, and their pretty eyes ever watching +for the main chance, or a chance man. Odsbodkins! but the world has +changed very little, for even then we hear of dashing specimens of the +New Woman, in the persons of ladies who affected men's hats, feathers, +coats, and perriwigs, to such an extent that our dear friend Addison +will gently rebuke them during the reign of the _Spectator_. He +doubts if this masculinity will "smite more effectually their male +beholders," for how would the sweet creatures themselves be affected +"should they meet a man on horseback, in his breeches and jack-boots, +and at the same time dressed up in a commode[A] and a night raile?" + +[Footnote A: A cumbersome head-dress made of lace or muslin.] + +How charming it would have been to watch the whole gay crew, just +as Addison and Steele must have done, and to feel, like these +two delightful philosophers, that you were a little above the +surroundings. Poor Dick Steele may not always have been above those +surroundings; we can fancy him taking things comfortably in some +tippling-house, red-faced, happy, and winey, but even the most +puritanical of us will forgive him. Read, by the way, what he says of +the Spa's morals[A]--"I found a sober, modest man was always looked +upon by both sexes as a precise, unfashioned fellow of no life or +spirit. It was ordinary for a man who had been drunk in good company, +or.... to speak of it next day before women for whom he had the +greatest respect. He was reproved, perhaps, with a blow of the fan, +or an 'Oh, fy!' but the angry lady still preserved an apparent +approbation in her countenance. He was called a strange, wicked +fellow, a sad wretch; he shrugs his shoulders, swears, receives +another blow, swears again he did not know he swore, and all was well. +You might often see men game in the presence of women, and throw at +once for more than they were worth, to recommend themselves as men of +spirit. I found by long experience that the loosest principles and +most abandoned behaviour carried all before them in pretentions to +women of fortune." + +[Footnote A: _Spectator_, No. 154. Steele is writing as Simon +Honeycomb.] + +Into this merry throng came Anne Oldfield during that +never-to-be-forgotten summer--not, however, as an equal, but as an +humble player of the troupe from Drury Lane. They had moved down from +London, these happy-go-lucky Bohemians, as they were wont to do each +season, among them being the ubiquitous Cibber, the gentlemanly Wilks, +and that very talented vagabond, George Powell. Powell it was who +liked his brandy not wisely but too well, and who made such passionate +love on the stage that Sir John Vanbrugh used to wax nervous for the +fate of the actresses. One great artiste was missing, however. Mrs. +Verbruggen was ill in London, and that shining exponent of light +comedy, who Cibber said was mistress of more variety of humour than +he ever knew in any one actress, would never more tread those boards +which were dearer to her than life.[A] Before she disappears for ever +from these "Palmy Days" let us read a page or two about her from the +graphic pictures in that famous "Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley +Cibber":-- + + * * * * * + +"As she was naturally a pleasant mimick, she had the skill to make +that talent useful on the stage, a talent which may be surprising in +a conversation, and yet be lost when brought to the theatre.... But +where the elocution is round, distinct, voluble, and various, as Mrs. +Montfort's was, the mimick there is a great assistant to the actor." + +[Footnote A: A brief memoir of Mrs. Verbruggen and her first husband, +handsome Will Mountford, will be found in "Echoes of the Playhouse."] + + * * * * * + +Which reminds one that more than a baker's dozen of modern comedians, +so called, are nothing less than mimics. However, this is digressing, +and so we continue: + +"Nothing, tho' ever so barren, if within the bounds of nature, could +be flat in her hands. She gave many heightening touches to characters +but coldly written, and often made an author vain of his work that in +itself had but little merit. She was so fond of humour, in what low +part soever to be found, that she would make no scruple of defacing +her fair form to come heartily into it;[A] for when she was eminent +in several desirable characters of wit and humour in higher life, she +would be in as much fancy when descending into the antiquated Abigail +of Fletcher ('Scornful Lady') as when triumphing in all the airs and +vain graces of a fine lady, a merit that few actresses care for. In +a play of D'Urfey's, now forgotten, called the 'Western Lass,' which +part she acted, she transformed her whole being, body, shape, voice, +language, look, and features, into almost another animal, with a +strong Devonshire dialect, a broad, laughing voice, a poking head, +round shoulders, an unconceiving eye, and the most bediz'ning, dowdy +dress that ever cover'd the untrain'd limbs of a Joan Trot. To have +seen her here you would have thought it impossible the same creature +could ever have been recover'd to what was as easy to her, the gay, +the lively, and the desirable. Nor was her humour limited to her sex; +for, while her shape permitted, she was a more adroit pretty fellow +than is usually seen upon the stage. Her easy air, action, mien, and +gesture quite chang'd, from the quoif to the cock'd hat and cavalier +in fashion. People were so fond of seeing her a man, that when the +part of Bays in the 'Rehearsal' had for some time lain dormant, she +was desired to take it up, which I have seen her act with all the true +coxcombly spirit and humour that the sufficiency of the character +required." + +[Footnote A: Davies, in his "Life of Garrick," says of Peg Woffington +that "in Mrs. Day, in the 'Committee,' she made no scruple to disguise +her beautiful countenance by drawing on it the lines of deformity and +the wrinkles of old age, and to put on the tawdry habilaments and +vulgar manners of an old hypocritical city vixen."] + +Let us cry peace to her manes and then wander back to Mistress +Oldfield, whom we have a very ungallant way of leaving from time to +time. + +Well, Verbruggen having been taken out of the dramatic lists "most of +her parts," as Colley chronicles, "were, of course, to be disposed of, +yet so earnest was the female scramble for them, that only one of them +fell to the share of Mrs. Oldfield, that of Leonora in 'Sir Courtly +Nice'; a character of good plain sense, but not over elegantly +written." + +A "female scramble" it must have been with a vengeance, as any one who +knows aught of theatrical ambition will easily understand. The only +really distinguished actress of the Drury Lane coterie _hors de +combat_, and a bevy of feminine vultures of no particular pretension, +anxiously waiting to dispose of her histrionic remains! Think of it, +ye managers who have to subdue the passions and limit the extravagant +hopes of your players, and pity poor, unfortunate Mr. Rich. Do you +wonder that Nance only contrived to get the plain-spoken Leonora? The +wonder of it is that she obtained any role whatsoever. + +Let Cibber continue the story, while he frankly confesses that even he +could form a false estimate of a colleague: + + * * * * * + +"It was in this part Mrs. Oldfield surpris'd me into an opinion of her +having all the innate powers of a good actress, though they were yet +but in the bloom of what they promis'd. Before she had acted this part +I had so cold an expectation from her abilities, that she could scarce +prevail with me to rehearse with her the scenes she was chiefly +concerned in with Sir Courtly, which I then acted. However, we +ran them over with a mutual inadvertency of one another. I seem'd +careless, as concluding that any assistance I could give her would be +to little or no purpose; and she mutter'd out her words in a sort of +mifty manner at my low opinion of her. But when the play came to be +acted, she had just occasion to triumph over the error of my judgment, +by the (almost) amazement that her unexpected performance awak'd me +to; so forward and sudden a step into nature I had never seen; and +what made her performance more valuable was that I knew it all +proceeded from her own understanding, untaught and unassisted by any +one more experienced actor." + + * * * * * + +In the original text, Cibber, in pursuance of that old-fashioned +method of capitalising every third or fourth word without any +particular rhyme or reason, has spelled occasion with a big O. Well +he might, for it was, perhaps, the most important occasion in all the +eventful life of Oldfield. She would win many a more popular triumph +in days to come, but what were all of them compared to the honour of +having compelled the writer to admit that he had blundered. + +"Though this part of Leonora in itself was of so little value, that +when she got more into esteem it was one of the several she gave away +to inferior actresses; yet it was the first (as I have observed) that +corrected my judgment of her, and confirmed me in a strong belief +that she could not fail in very little time of being what she was +afterwards allow'd to be, the foremost ornament of our Theatre." + +It takes but slight exercise of fancy to see inside the stuffy little +theatre of Bath, on that memorable summer afternoon, when "Sir Courtly +Nice"[A] is produced, with Cibber in the foppish title-role and the +fair unknown as Leonora, "Belguard's sister, in love with Farewell." +Her fat, peaceful, and phlegmatic Majesty, Anne Stuart, is in the +royal box, perhaps (although she is far from being a playgoer), and +with her retinue may be seen her dearest of friends, Sarah Churchill, +now Duchess of Marlborough, and the most brilliant political Amazon of +her time. How appropriate, by-the-way, that they should be together at +the comedy. The whole intimacy of the two, gentle Sovereign and fiery +subject, is nothing more or less than a curious play, wherein Anne +takes the role of Queen (unwillingly enough, poor thing, for she was +born to be bourgeoise) and the Duchess assumes the leading part. +Unfortunate "Mrs. Morley"![B] You have a weary time of it, trying to +act up to royalty when you would be so much happier as a middle-class +housewife, and, perhaps, you have never been more bored than you are +to-day in viewing "Sir Courtly Nice." Nor can the performance be as +delightful as it might otherwise prove to her of Marlborough; 'tis but +a few months since her son, the Marquis of Blandford, had ended in +small-pox a career which promised to carry on the greatness of his +house. + +[Footnote A: "Sir Courtly Nice; or, It Cannot be," was from the pen of +John Crown. In dedicating it to the Duke of Ormond, as can be seen in +the original publication of the piece ("London, Printed by H.H. Jun. +for R. Bently, in Russell street, Covent Garden, and Jos. Hindmarsh, +at the Golden-Ball over against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill, +MDCLXXXV"). The author says: "This comedy was Written by the Sacred +Command of our late Most Excellent King, of ever blessed and beloved +Memory (Charles II.). I had the great good fortune to please Him often +at his Court in my Masque, on the Stage in Tragedies and Comedies, and +so to advance myself in His good opinion; an Honour may render a +wiser Man than I vain; for I believe he had more equals in extent of +Dominion than of Understanding. The greatest pleasure he had from the +Stage was in Comedy, and he often Commanded me to Write it, and lately +gave me a Spanish Play called 'No' Puedeser Or, It Cannot Be' out of +which I took part o' the Name and design o' this."] + +[Footnote B: It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that in the +private correspondence between Anne and the Duchess of Marlborough, +the former signed herself "Mrs. Morley," while her friend masqueraded +as "Mrs. Freeman."] + +The comedy is about to begin as a common-looking person makes his +appearance in the box. He is a dull, heavy fellow, who suggests +nothing more strongly than a fondness for brown October ale and a good +dinner into the bargain. Anne turns towards him with as affectionate +a glance as she thinks it seeming to bestow in public. Is he not her +husband, George of Denmark, and the father of all those children whom +she never has succeeded in rearing to man's, or woman's, estate? He is +a faithful consort, too, which is saying not a little in the days when +Royal constancy, on the male side, is the rarest of jewels. George +has vices, to be sure, but they belong to the stomach rather than the +heart--that obese heart which, such as it is, the good Queen can call +her own. + +"Hath your Royal Highness ever seen this Cibber act?" asked the +Duchess, by way of making conversation. She never stands on ceremony +with soft-pated George, and does not wait to speak until she is spoken +to. + +"Cibber--Cibber--who be Cibber?" queries the Prince, a beery look in +his eye, a foreign accent on his tongue. + +"He's the son of the sculptor, Caius Gabriel Cibber, your Highness." + +"I do not know--I do not know," mutters George drowsily. Then he falls +asleep in the box, and snores so deeply that Manager Rich, who has +been in the front of the house, pokes his inquisitive face into the +poorly-lighted auditorium, and quickly pokes it back again. + +But hush! Wake up, Prince, and look at the stage. The play has begun, +and some member of the company, we know not who, has recited the +archaic prologue, which asks: + + "What are the Charmes, by which these happy Isles + Hence gain'd Heaven's brightest and eternal smiles? + What Nation upon Earth besides our own + But by a loss like ours had been undone? + Ten Ages scarce such Royal worths display + As England lost, and found in one strange Day. + One hour in sorrow and confusion hurld, + And yet the next the envy of the World." + +[Illustration: COLLEY CIBBER + +In the character of "Sir Novelty Fashion, newly created Lord +Foppington," in Vanbrugh's play of "The Relapse, or, Virtue in +Danger." + +_From the Painting by_ J. GRISONI, _the property of the Garrick Club_] + +The King is dead! Long live the Queen! The prologue was written in +honour of his most Catholic Majesty James II. and his consort, Marie +Beatrice of Modena, but the opening lines are admirably adapted to +flatter Anne, and so they are retained, even though what follows +happens to be new.[A] + +[Footnote A: The remainder of the original prologue, had it been +recited, would have raised a storm.] + +But what care we for the prologue when the first scene is on and +Violante and Leonora are confessing their respective love affairs, as +women always do--on the stage. Leonora has a dragon of a brother who +would compel her to marry that pink of empty propriety, Sir Courtly, +but she rebels against the admirer selected for her, as all well-bred +young women should in plays, and sets her heart upon another. In +consequence there is trouble of the dear old romantic kind. + +"I never stir out, but as they say the Devil does, with chains and +torments," Leonora tells Violante. "She that is my Hell at home is so +abroad." + +"Vio. A New Woman? + +"LEO. No, an old Woman, or rather an old Devil; nay, worse than an old +Devil, an old Maid. + +"Vio. Oh, there's no Fiend so Envious. + +"LEO. Right; she will no more let young People sin, than the Devil +will let 'em be sav'd, out of envy to their happiness. + +"Vio. Who is she? + +"LEO. One of my own blood, an Aunt. + +"Vio. I know her. She of thy blood? She has not a drop of it these +twenty years; the Devil of envy sucked it all out, and let verjuice in +the roome." + +These lines are decidedly unfeminine and coarse, as viewed from a +nineteenth century standard, and there is nothing in them to recommend +the two girls to the particular favour of the audience. Yet, in +the case of Leonora, they are given with such rare spirit, and the +speaker, with her almost sensuous charm and the melody of that +marvellous voice, is so fascinating, that the house is suddenly caught +in some entrancing spell. Oldfield has burst upon it in all the sudden +glory of a newly unfolded flower, and murmurs of admiration and +surprise are heard on every side. More than this, Queen Anne, whose +thoughts may have been far away with the dead Duke of Gloucester, +betrays a sudden interest in the performance, and thus sets the +fashion for all those around her, excepting his most sleepy Royal +Highness, the Prince of Denmark. He dozes on; twenty angels from +heaven would not disturb him. + +As the play proceeds, the curiosity centres around the new Leonora, +so that even the scene where Sir Courtly is found making the most +elaborate of toilets, with the assistance of a bevy of vocalists, does +not exert the attraction to be found in the presence of Oldfield. The +episode is all very funny, of course, and there is an appreciative +titter when the fop defines the characteristics of a gentleman: + +"Complaisance, fine hands, a mouth well furnished-- + +"SERVANT. With fine language? + +"SIR COURTLY. Fine teeth, you sot; fine language belongs to pedants +and poor fellows that live by their wits. Men of quality are above +wit. 'Tis true, for our diversion, sometimes we write, but we ne'er +regard wit. I write, but I never write any wit. + +"SERVANT. How then, sir? + +"SIR COURTLY. I write like a gentleman, soft and easy." + +It is only a titter, however, that Cibber can produce this afternoon, +or evening,[A] nor does the audience take the usual relish in that +touch-and-go rubbish of a duet sung by a supposed Indian and his love, +a duet in which the former declares: + + "My other Females all Yellow, fair or Black, + To thy Charmes shall prostrate fall, + As every kind of elephant does + To the white Elephant Buitenacke. + And thou alone shall have from me + Jimminy, Gomminy, whee, whee, whee, + The Gomminy, Jimminy, whee." + +To which the lovely maiden answers: + + "The great Jaw-waw that rules our Land, + And pearly Indian sea + Has not so absolute Command + As thou hast over me, + With a Jimminy, Gomminy, Gomminy, + Jimminy, Jimminy, Gomminy, whee." + +[Footnote A: Theatrical performances in this reign generally began at +5 p.m.] + +When the play is over Nance can take a new part, that of a feminine +conqueror. She has overshadowed Colley Cibber, who is more dazed than +chagrined at the _denouement_, and she has proved more potent for the +public amusement than all the beauties of "Jimminy, Gomminy," with its +elephants, its jaw-waw, and its pearly Indian Sea. As she sits in the +green-room, smiling in girlish triumph while she looks around at the +beaux and players who crowd about her, anxious to worship the rising +star, her eloquent glance falls on George Farquhar. There is a tear +in his eye, but a radiant expression about the face. What does the +Oldfield's success mean to the Captain? Perhaps Anne knows, as she +throws him a tender recognition; perhaps she thinks of that song in +"Sir Courtly Nice" which runs: + + "Oh, be kind, my dear, be kind, + Whilst our Loves and we are Young; + We shall find, we shall find, + Time will change the face or mind, + Youth will not continue long. + Oh, be kind, my dear, be kind." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AN ENTRE-ACTE + + +While Anne Oldfield is resting from her first triumph and preparing +for another, let us glance for a moment at the theatrical conditions +which surround her. Curious, perplexing conditions they are, marking +as they do a transition between the brilliant but generally filthy +period of the Restoration--a period in which some of the worst and +some of the best of plays saw the light--and the time when the +punctilio and artificial decency of the age will cast over the stage +the cold light of formality and restraint. The nation is but slowly +recovering from the licentiousness which characterised the merry reign +of Charles II., that witty, sceptical sovereign, who never believed in +the honesty of man nor the virtue of frail woman. The playwrights are +recovering too, yet, if anything, more tardily than the people; for +when a nasty cynicism, like that pervading the old comedies, is once +boldly cultivated, many a long day must elapse ere it can be replaced +by a cleaner, healthier spirit. + +Charles has surely had much to answer for at the bar of public opinion +(a bar for which he evidently felt a profound contempt), and the evil +influence which he and his Court exerted on the drama supplies one of +the greatest blots on his moral 'scutcheon. Augustus William Schlegel, +that foreigner who studied the literature of the English stage as few +Britons have ever done, well pointed out that while the Puritans had +brought Republican principles and religious zeal into public odium, +this light-hearted monarch seemed expressly born to dispel all respect +for the kingly dignity. "England was inundated with the foreign +follies and vices in his train. The Court set the fashion of the most +undisguised immorality, and this example was the more extensively +contagious, as people imagined that they showed their zeal for the +new order of things by an extravagant way of thinking and living. +The fanaticism of the Republicans had been accompanied with true +strictness of manners, and hence nothing appeared more convenient than +to obtain the character of Royalists by the extravagant inclination +for all lawful and unlawful pleasures. + +"The age of Louis XIV. was nowhere imitated with greater depravity. +The prevailing gallantry at the Court of France was not without +reserve and tenderness of feeling; they sinned, if I may so speak, +with some degree of dignity, and no man ventured to attack what was +honourable, though his own actions might not exactly coincide with it. +The English played a part which was altogether unnatural to them; they +gave themselves heavily up to levity; they everywhere confounded +the coarsest licentiousness with free mental vivacity, and did not +perceive that the sort of grace which is still compatible with +depravity, disappears with the last veil which it throws off." + +As Schlegel goes on to say, we can easily imagine into what direction +the tastes of the English people drifted under such auspices. "They +possessed no real knowledge of the fine arts, and these were merely +favoured like other foreign fashions and inventions of luxury. They +neither felt a true want of poetry, nor had any relish for it; they +merely wished to be entertained in a brilliant and light manner. The +theatre, which in its former simplicity had attracted the spectators +solely by the excellence of the dramatic works and the actors, was now +furnished out with all the appendages with which we are at this +day familiar; but what is gained in external decoration is lost in +internal worth." + +In other words, the theatrical life and literature of the Restoration +was morally rotten to the core. How that rottenness has been giving +way, during the childhood of Nance Oldfield, to what may be styled a +comparative decency, need not be described here. Suffice it to explain +that such a change is taking place, and let us accordingly sing, +rejoice and give thanks for small mercies. Thalia has ceased to be a +wanton; she is fast becoming quite a respectable young woman, and as +to Melpomene--well, that severe Muse is actually waxing religious. + +Religious? Yes, verily, for will not all good Londoners read in the +course of a year or two that there will be a performance of "Hamlet" +at Drury Lane "towards the defraying the charge of repairing and +fitting up the chapel in Russell Court," said performance to be given +"with singing by Mr. Hughes, and entertainment of dancing by Monsieur +Cherier, Miss Lambro his scholar, and Mr. Evans. Boxes, 5s.; pit, 3s.; +gallery, 2s.; upper gallery, 1s." + +Here was an ideal union of church and stage with a vengeance, the one +being served by the other, and the whole thing done to the secular +accompaniment of singing and dancing. For an instant the town was +scandalised, but Defoe, that perturbed spirit for whom there was no +such word as rest, saw the humour of the situation. + +"Hard times, gentlemen, hard times these are indeed with the Church," +he informs the promoters of this ecclesiastical benefit, "to send her +to the playhouse to gather pew-money. For shame, gentlemen! go to the +Church and pay your money there, and never let the playhouse have +such a claim to its establishment as to say the Church is beholden to +her.... Can our Church be in danger? How is it possible? The whole +nation is solicitous and at work for her safety and prosperity. The +Parliament address, the Queen consults, the Ministry execute, the +Armies fight, and all for the Church; but at home we have other heroes +that act for the Church. Peggy Hughes sings, Monsieur Ramandon plays, +Miss Santlow dances, Monsieur Cherier teaches, and all for the Church. +Here's heavenly doings! here's harmony!" + +"In short," concludes the author of "Robinson Crusoe," "the +observations on this most preposterous piece of Church work are so +many, they cannot come into the compass of this paper; but if the +money raised here be employed to re-edify this chapel, I would have +it, as is very frequent, in like cases, written over the door in +capital letters: 'This church was re-edified anno 1706, at the expense +and by the charitable contribution of the enemies of the reformation +of our morals, and to the eternal scandal and most just reproach of +the Church of England and the Protestant religion. Witness our hands, + + "LUCIFER, Prince of Darkness,| + and | _Churchwardens_."[A] + HAMLET, Prince of Denmark, | + +[Footnote A: _Review_, June 20, 1706.] + +The "enemies of the reformation of our morals!" Defoe used the +expression satirically, but how well it suited the minds of many pious +persons, ranging all the way from bishops to humble laymen, who could +see nothing in the theatre excepting the prospective flames of the +infernal regions. Clergymen preached against the playhouse then, just +as some of them have done since, and will continue so to do until +the arrival of the Millennium. Oftentimes the criticisms of these +well-meaning gentlemen had more than a grain of truth to make them +half justifiable. The stage was still far from pure, in spite of +the improvement which was going on steadily enough, and there is no +denying the fact that several of the worst plays of the Restoration +could still claim admirers. Even "Sir Courtly Nice," wherein occurs +one of the most indecent passages ever penned, and one of the most +suggestive of songs, was received without a murmur. Congreve was +pardoned for his breaches of decorum, and Dryden was looked upon as +quite proper enough for all purposes. + +The _morale_ of the players could hardly be called unimpeachable, at +least in some instances, but the violations of social rules were not +so open as they had been in the old days. Here and there a frail +actress might depart from the stony path of virtue, or an actor give +himself up to wine and the dodging of bailiffs, yet the attending +scandals were not flaunted in the face of the public. In other words, +there were Thespians of doubtful reputation then, just as there are +now, and these black sheep helped materially to keep up against their +white brethren that remarkable prejudice which has endured even unto +the present decade. + +As a class, the players had no social position of any kind, although +the great ones of the earth, the men of rank, never hesitated to +hobnob with them when, like Mrs. Gamp, they felt "so dispoged." Even +in the enlightened reign of Queen Anne, there existed among many +intelligent persons the vague idea that one who trod the boards was +nothing more or less than a vagabond, and we are not surprised to +learn, therefore, that in a royal proclamation of the period, "players +and mountebanks" are mentioned in the same sentence, as though there +was little difference between them. + +Perhaps, the "artists" to whom the title of vagabond might be applied +with a certain degree of justice were the strolling players, who seem +to have been much after the fashion of others of their ilk, before +and since. Good-natured, poverty-stricken barnstormers they doubtless +were, living from-hand-to-mouth, and quite willing to go through the +whole gamut of tragedy, from Shakespeare to Dryden, for the sake of +a good supper. Here is a graphic picture of such a band of dramatic +ne'er-do-wells, drawn by Dick Steele in the forty-eighth issue of the +_Spectator_: + +"We have now at this place [this is a letter of an imaginary +correspondent to 'Mr. Spectator'] a company of strollers, who are very +far from offending in the impertinent splendor of the drama. They are +so far from falling into these false gallantries, that the stage is +here in his original situation of a cart. Alexander the Great was +acted by a fellow in a paper cravat. The next day, the Earl of Essex +seemd to have no distress but his poverty; and my Lord Foppington the +same morning wanted any better means to show himself a fop than by +wearing stockings of different colours.[A] In a word, though they have +had a full barn for many days together, our itinerants are still so +wretchedly poor, that without you can prevail to send us the furniture +you forbid at the playhouse, the heroes appear only like sturdy +beggars, and the heroines gypsies. We have had but one part which was +performed and dressed with propriety, and that was Justice Clodpate. +This was so well done, that it offended Mr. Justice Overdo, who, in +the midst of our whole audience, was (like Quixote in the puppet show) +so highly provoked, that he told them, if they would move compassion, +it should be in their own persons and not in the characters of +distressed princes and potentates. He told them, if they were so good +at finding the way to people's hearts, they should do it at the end of +bridges or church porches, in their proper vocation as beggars. This, +the justice says, they must expect, since they could not be contented +to act heathen warriors, and such fellows as Alexander, but must +presume to make a mockery of one of the Quorum." + +[Footnote A: It must be remembered that theatrical costumes, as we see +them to-day, did not exist. The art of dressing correctly, according +to the nature of the character and the period in which the play was +supposed to occur, was practically unknown. Even in after years we +hear of Spranger Barry playing Othello in a gold-laced scarlet suit, +small cocked hat, and knee-breeches, with silk stockings. Think of +it, ye sticklers for realism! Dr. Doran narrates how Garrick dressed +Hamlet in a court suit of black coat, "waistcoat and knee-breeches, +short wig with queue and bag, buckles in the shoes, ruffles at the +wrists, and flowing ends of an ample cravat hanging over his chest." +Barton Booth's costume for Cato was even more of an anachronism. "The +Cato of Queen Anne's day wore a flowered gown and an ample wig."] + +Poor strollers. There was a bit of stern philosophy in the advice +of the justice, for they would probably have led a merrier and more +luxurious life had they deserted the barns for the bridges and +church-porches. Perhaps the same change would suit the wandering +players who are to be found in these last years of the nineteenth +century, travelling from one third-class hotel to another, and +wondering whether they will ever make enough money to return home and +sun themselves on the New York Rialto. + +Humble as they were in the time of Queen Anne, her Government saw fit +to subject the strollers to what might be called police regulation, +and the Master of the Revels, who was a censor of plays and a +supervisor-in-general of theatrical matters, had to issue an imposing +order setting forth that whereas "several Companies of Strolling +Actors pretend to have Licenses from Noblemen,[A] and presume under +that pretence to avoid the Master of the Revels, his Correcting +their Plays, Drolls, Farces, and Interludes: which being against Her +Majesty's Intentions and Directions to the said Master: These are to +signifie That such Licenses are not of any Force or authority. There +are likewise several Mountebanks Acting upon Stages, and Mountbanks +on Horseback, Persons that keep Poppets, and others that make Shew +of Monsters, and strange Sights of Living Creatures, who presume to +Travel without the said Master of the Revels' Licence," &c. &c. The +whole pronunciamento went to show that the despised strollers were not +beneath the notice of a lynx-eyed Government. + +[Footnote A: A survival of the days when noblemen often had their own +companies of actors, and were empowered to regulate the performances +of these dramatic servants.] + +It is curious that the functionary to whom was assigned the important +critical duty of revising plays should also be obliged to concern +himself with the doings of puppets and country "side shows." Yet +before the law there was very little if any difference between a +performance of "Hamlet" by the great Betterton, and an exhibition of +the marital infelicities of Punch and Judy. Are matters so much better +now that we can afford to laugh at the incongruity? Do not theatres +devoted to the "legitimate" and dime museums, the homes of +triple-pated men, human corkscrews and other intellectual freaks, come +under the same police supervision, and rank one and all within the +same classification as "places of amusement?" Nay, to go further and +fare worse, do not some of these very freaks regard themselves as +fellow-workers in the dramatic vineyard made so fertile through the +toil of a Booth, a Mansfield or a Terry? The writer has himself heard +the manipulator of a marionette troupe (whose wife, by-the-way, posed +in a curio hall as a "Babylonian Princess") speak of Sir Henry Irving +as "a brother professional." + +This complacent individual had his prototype during the very period +which we are considering. He was an artistic gentleman named Crawley, +the happy manager of a puppet show which used to bring joy into the +hearts of the merry people thronging the famous Bartholomew Fair. One +fine day, as the manager was standing outside of his booth, he was put +into a flutter of excitement by the approach of the mighty Betterton, +in company with a country friend. The actor offered several shillings +for himself and rustic as they were about to enter the show, but this +was too much for Crawley. He saw the chance of his life, and took +advantage of it. "No, no, sir," he said to "Old Thomas," with quite +the patronising air of an equal, "we never take money of one another!" +Betterton did not see the matter in the same light, and, indignantly +throwing down the silver, stalked into the booth without so much as +thanking the proprietor of the puppets. + +What a Bedlam of a place Bartholomew must have been, with its noise, +its gew-gaws, bad beer, cheap shows, and riotous visitors. Ned Ward, +to whose descriptions modern readers are indebted, partly through the +aid of John Ashton,[A] for many a glimpse of old-time London life, +has left us a vivid picture of the fair as it appeared to him. The +entrance to it, he says, was like unto a "Belfegor's concert," with +its "rumbling of drums, mixed with the intolerable squalling of +catcalls and penny trumpets." Nor could the sense of smell have been +much better catered to than that of hearing, owing to the "singeing +of pigs and burnt crackling of over-roasted pork." Once within the +enclosure he saw all sorts of remarkable things, including the actors, +"strutting round their balconies in their tinsey robes and golden +leather buskins;" the rope-dancers, and the dirty eating-places, where +"cooks stood dripping at their doors, like their roasted swine's +flesh." Ward also looked on at several comedies, or "droles," being +enacted in the grounds, and, after coming to the conclusion that they +were like "State fireworks," and "never do anybody good but those that +are concerned in the show," he repaired to a dancing booth. Here he +had the privilege of watching a woman "dance with glasses full of +liquor upon the backs of her hands, to which she gave variety of +motions, without spilling." + +[Footnote A: See Ashton's "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne."] + +All this may have a curious interest, but it looks a trifle +inconsistent, does it not, to lament the unjustness of connecting +puppet entertainments and the like with the stage, and then +deliberately devote space to the mysteries of Bartholomew Fair? It is +more to the purpose to speak of the two theatres which claimed the +attention of London playgoers in the year 1703--the Theatre Royal, +Drury Lane, and the house in Lincoln's Inn Fields. + +Of the two, Drury Lane was the more important in an historical sense, +having been the house of the famous "King's Company," as the players +of Charles II. were styled, and then of the combined forces formed +in 1682 by the union of this organisation and the "Duke of York's +Company." This was the house into which Nance Oldfield came as a +modest _debutante_. It had been built from the designs of Wren, to +replace the old theatre destroyed by fire in 1672. + +Cibber has sketched for us the second Drury Lane's interior, as it +appeared in its original form, before the making of changes intended +to enlarge the seating capacity. "It must be observed then, that the +area or platform of the old stage projected about four feet forwarder +(_sic_), in a semi-oval figure, parallel to the benches of the pit; +and that the former lower doors of entrance for the actors were +brought down between the two foremost (and then only) pilasters; in +the place of which doors now the two stage boxes are fixt. That where +the doors of entrance now are, there formerly stood two additional +side-wings, in front to a full set of scenes, which had then almost a +double effect in their loftiness and magnificence. + +"By this original form, the usual station of the actors, in almost +every scene, was advanc'd at least ten foot nearer to the audience +than they now can be; because, not only from the stage's being +shorten'd in front, but likewise from the additional interposition of +those stage boxes, the actors (in respect to the spectators that fill +them) are kept so much more backward from the main audience than they +us'd to be. But when the actors were in possession of that forwarder +space to advance upon, the voice was then more in the centre of the +house, so that the most distant ear had scarce the least doubt or +difficulty in hearing what fell from the weakest utterance. All +objects were thus drawn nearer to the sense; every painted scene was +stronger; every grand scene and dance more extended; every rich or +fine-coloured habit had a more lively lustre. Nor was the minutest +motion of a feature (properly changing from the passion or humour it +suited) ever lost, as they frequently must be in the obscurity of +too great a distance. And how valuable an advantage the facility +of hearing distinctly is to every well-acted scene, every common +spectator is a judge. A voice scarce raised above the tone of a +whisper, either in tenderness, resignation, innocent distress, or +jealousy suppress'd, often have as much concern with the heart as +the most clamorous passions; and when on any of these occasions +such affecting speeches are plainly heard, or lost, how wide is the +difference from the great or little satisfaction received from them? +To all this the master of a company may say, I now receive ten pounds +more than could have been taken formerly in every full house. Not +unlikely. But might not his house be oftener full if the auditors were +oftener pleas'd? Might not every bad house, too, by a possibility of +being made every day better, add as much to one side of his account as +it could take from the other." + +The latter portion of Colley's remarks will be echoed by our own +audiences, which are so often doomed to see the most delicate of plays +acted in barns of theatres where all the sensitive effects of dialogue +and action are swallowed up in the immensity of stage and auditorium. +There is nothing more dispiriting, indeed, both to performers and +spectators, than the presentation of some comedy like the "School for +Scandal" in a house far better suited to the picturesque demands of +the "Black Crook" or the "County Circus." + +The theatre in Drury Lane, as Oldfield knew it, had a not +over-cheerful interior, the most noticeable features of which included +the pit, provided with backless benches, and surrounded by what would +now be called the Promenade. The latter, as Misson informs us,[A] was +taken up for the most part by ladies of quality. In addition to these +quarters and the boxes, there were two galleries reserved for the +common herd, but into which, no doubt, impecunious beaux, down in the +heels and at the mouth, would frequently stray. + +[Footnote A: Henre Misson's "Memoirs and Observations in his Travels +over England."] + +The performances generally began at 5 o'clock, but that there were +occasional lapses into unpunctuality, may be inferred from the +following advertisement in the _Daily Courant_ of October 5, 1703: + +"Her Majesty's Servants of the Theatre Royal being return'd from the +Bath, do intend, to-morrow, being Wednesday, the sixth of this instant +October to act a Comedy call'd 'Love Makes a Man, or the Fop's +Fortune.'[A] With singing and dancing. And whereas the audiences have +been incommoded by the Plays usually beginning too late, the Company +of the said Theatre do therefore give notice that they will constantly +begin at Five a Clock without fail, and continue the same Hour all the +Winter."[B] + +[Footnote A: One of Cibber's earlier plays.] + +[Footnote B: Quoted in "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne."] + +To the _fin de siecle_ playgoer the idea of beginning a performance +at so strange an hour seems nothing short of startling, until it be +remembered that people of quality were then wont to dine between three +and four o'clock of the afternoon. How they spent the earlier portion +of the day is not hard to relate. The men of fashion rose tardily, +feeling none the better, as a rule, for a night at club or tavern, and +then lounged about as best they could, visiting, sauntering in the +Mall,[A] or otherwise trying to pass the time until dinner. This solid +meal over they were ready for the theatre, where they occasionally +arrived in a state of unpleasant exhilaration, damning the play, +ogling the women and making themselves as obnoxious as possible to +the unfortunates who cared more for the stage than the commonplace +audience. + +[Footnote A: "It seem'd to me as if the World was turn'd top-side +turvy; for the ladies look'd like undaunted heroes, fit for government +or battle, and the gentlemen like a parcel of fawning, flattering +fops, that could bear cuckoldom with patience, make a jest of an +affront, and swear themselves very faithful and humble servants to the +petticoat; creeping and cringing in dishonor to themselves, to what +was decreed by Heaven their inferiours; as if their education had been +amongst monkeys, who (as it is said) in all cases give the preeminence +to their females."--"The Mall as described by Ned Ward."] + +And the women: what of them? They played cards, often for highly +respectable(?) stakes, or went to the theatre when there was nothing +better to do, and frittered away the greater number of the twenty-four +hours in a mode that the fashionable woman of 1898 would consider +positively scandalous. Sometimes the dear creatures went for a stroll +in the Mall, there to meet the English coxcombs with French manners, +or else they paid a few visits. + +"Thus they take a sip of tea, then for a draught or two of scandal +to digest it, next let it be ratafia, or any other favourite liquor, +scandal must be the after draught to make it sit easy on their +stomach, till the half hour's past, and they have disburthen'd +themselves of their secrets, and take coach for some other place to +collect new matter for defamation."[A] + +[Footnote A: Thomas Brown.] + +Drury Lane must have presented an animated but none the less +disorderly scene any evening during the season when a popular play +was to be given. Women in the boxes talking away for dear life, beaux +walking about the house, chattering, ogling and laughing, or even +sitting on the stage while the performance was in progress,[A] and the +orange girls running around to sell their wares and, not infrequently, +their own souls as well. + +[Footnote A: Owing in great part to the efforts of Queen Anne, this +wretched custom of allowing a few spectators to sit on the stage was +practically abolished before the close of the reign.] + + "Now turn, and see where loaden with her freight, + A damsel stands, and orange-wench is hight; + See! how her charge hangs dangling by the rim, + See! how the balls blush o'er the basket-brim; + But little those she minds, the cunning belle + Has other fish to fry, and other fruit to sell; + See! how she whispers yonder youthful peer, + See! how he smiles and lends a greedy ear. + At length 'tis done, the note o'er orange wrapt + Has reach'd the box, and lays in lady's lap." + +These lines by Nicholas Rowe form a graphic but unsavoury picture +of the demoralisation to be found in an early eighteenth century +audience. Affairs were much better than they used to be in the +_laissez-faire_ Restoration period, but, as may be imagined, there +was still room for improvement. The rake, the cynic and the +loosely-moraled women were still abroad in the land (have we quite +done with them even yet?), and many a hard struggle would take place +before the artificial restraint and decorum of the Georgian era would +triumph over the mocking spirit of Charles Stuart and his professional +idlers. In the meantime, as Shadwell relates, the rakes "live as much +by their wits as ever; and to avoid the clinking dun of a boxkeeper, +at the end of one act they sneak to the opposite side 'till the end +of another; then call the boxkeeper saucy rascal, ridicule the poet, +laugh at the actors, march to the opera, and spunge away the rest of +the evening." And he goes on to say that "the women of the town take +their places in the pit with their wonted assurance. The middle +gallery is fill'd with the middle part of the city, and your high +exalted galleries are grac'd with handsome footmen, that wear their +master's linen."[A] + +[Footnote A: The footmen were sometimes sent, early in the afternoon, +to keep places in the theatre until their masters or mistresses should +arrive. They created so much disturbance, however, that a stop had to +be put to the practice, and the servants were relegated to the upper +gallery. To this they were given free admission.] + +And now for a few pages about Drury Lane's rival, the theatre within +the walls of the old tennis court in Lincoln's Inn Fields. It was +the home of the company headed by the noble Betterton, the "English +Roscius," who had, in 1695, headed the revolt against the management +of the other house. At that time the tide of popular success at Drury +Lane had reached a rather low ebb, a painful circumstance due, no +doubt, to the fickleness of a public that was beginning to tire of +the favourite players and to betray a fondness for operatic and +spectacular productions rather than the "legitimate." Christopher +Rich, the manager of the theatre, was, like many of his kind, more +given to considering the weight of his purse than the scant supply of +sentiment with which nature might originally have endowed him, and so +he tried to do two characteristic things. The salaries of his faithful +employes should be reduced and the older members of the company +retired into the background as much as possible. Younger faces must +occupy the centre of the stage; even Betterton, the greatest actor of +his time, should be supplanted in some of his parts by the dissolute +George Powell, and the genius of Mrs. Barry,[A] whom Dryden thought +the greatest actress he had ever seen, was to give way to the less +matured charms of the lovely Anne Bracegirdle. + +[Footnote A: Mrs. Barry is said to have been a very elegant dresser; +but, like most of her contemporaries, she was not a very correct one. +Thus, in the "Unhappy Favourite," she played Queen Elizabeth, and in +the scene of the crowning she wore the coronation robes of James II.'s +Queen; and Ewell says she gave the audience a strong idea of the +first-named Queen.--DORAN'S "Annals of the Stage."] + +Cibber relates the story in a sympathetic vein. "Though the success of +the 'Prophetess' and 'King Arthur' (two dramatic operas in which the +patentees[A] had embark'd all their hopes) was in appearance very +great, yet their whole receipts did not so far balance their expense +as to keep them out of a large debt, which it was publicly known was +about this time contracted.... Every branch of the theatrical trade +had been sacrificed to the necessary fitting out those tall ships +of burthen that were to bring home the Indies. Plays of course were +neglected, actors held cheap, and slightly dress'd, while singers and +dancers were better paid, and embroider'd. These measures, of course, +created murmurings on one side, and ill-humour and contempt on the +other." + +[Footnote A: Alexander Davenant, Charles Killigrew, and Rich.] + +"When it became necessary therefore to lessen the charge, a resolution +was taken to begin with the salaries of the actors; and what seem'd +to make this resolution more necessary at this time was the loss of +Nokes, Montfort and Leigh, who all dy'd about the same year. No wonder +then, if when these great pillars were at once remov'd the building +grew weaker and the audiences very much abated. Now in this distress, +what more natural remedy could be found than to incite and encourage +(tho' with some hazard) the industry of the surviving actors? But the +patentees, it seems, thought the surer way was to bring down their pay +in proportion to the fall of their audiences. To make this project +more feasible they propos'd to begin at the head of 'em, rightly +judging that if the principals acquiesc'd, their inferiors would +murmur in vain. + +"To bring this about with a better grace, they, under pretence of +bringing younger actors forward, order'd several of Betterton's +and Mrs. Barry's chief parts to be given to young Powel and Mrs. +Bracegirdle. In this they committed two palpable errors; for while +the best actors are in health, and still on the stage, the public is +always apt to be out of humour when those of a lower class pretend to +stand in their places." + +And with a bit more of this timely philosophy--to which, let it be +hoped, he ever lived up to himself--Colley goes on to say that, +"tho' the giddy head of Powel accepted the parts of Betterton, Mrs. +Bracegirdle had a different way of thinking, and desir'd to be excused +from those of Mrs. Barry; her good sense was not to be misled by the +insidious favour of the patentees; she knew the stage was wide enough +for her success, without entering into any such rash and invidious +competition with Mrs. Barry, and, therefore, wholly refus'd acting any +part that properly belong'd to her." + +Then came the revolt, which the astute Betterton ("a cunning old fox" +Gildon once dubbed him) seems to have managed with all the diplomacy +of a Machiavelli. "Betterton upon this drew into his party most of the +valuable actors, who, to secure their unity, enter'd with him into a +sort of association to stand or fall together." In the meantime he +pushed the war into Africa, or, to change the simile, determined to +lead his people out of the land of bondage, as exemplified by Drury +Lane, and settle down in a new theatre. Nay, the "cunning old fox" +even went so far as to secure an interview with his most august +sovereign, William of Orange. What an audience it must have been, +with William, stiff, uncomfortable, and unintentionally repellant, +confronted by the greatest of living "Hamlets" and a group of other +players made brilliant by the presence of the imperial but not too +moral Mistress Barry, the lovely Bracegirdle, breathing the perfume of +virtue, real or assumed, and the fascinating Verbruggen.[A] Perhaps +the King found them an interesting lot, perhaps he merely regarded +them with the same good-natured curiosity he might have exhibited for +a pack of mountebanks, but in either case he was determined, with that +sombre seriousness so typical of him, to do his duty in the premises. +So he listened patiently to their complaints, and the result of it all +was that by the advice of the Earl of Dorset, the Lord Chamberlain, a +royal licence, allowing the revolters to act in a separate theatre, +was duly issued. A subscription for the erection of the new house was +immediately opened, people of quality paid in anywhere from twenty to +forty guineas a piece, and the whole affair assumed permanent shape. +Poor, tired, pre-occupied William had done what was expected of him, +lifting his eyes for the nonce from the real world, as represented by +the map of Europe, to gaze upon his subjects of the mimic boards. + +[Footnote A: Mrs. Verbruggen and Joseph Williams seceded from the new +company almost at once.] + +"My having been a witness of this unnecessary rupture," writes Cibber, +"was of great use to me when, many years after, I came to be a menager +myself. I laid it down as a settled maxim, that no company could +flourish while the chief actors and the undertakers were at variance. +I therefore made it a point while it was possible upon tolerable +terms, to keep the valuable actors in humour with their station; and +tho' I was as jealous of their encroachments as any of my co-partners +could be, I always guarded against the least warmth in any +expostulations with them; not but at the same time they might see I +was perhaps more determin'd in the question than those that gave a +loose to their resentment, and when they were cool were as apt to +recede." + +Colley was shrewd enough in dealing with players, and, as any one who +has ever had aught to do with them knows, the majority of Thespians +must be treated with the greatest tact. They are sensitive and +high-strung, yet often as unreasonable as children, and the man who +can rule over them with ease should be snapped up by an appreciative +government to conduct its most diplomatic of missions. With the +theatrical stars of his own day Cibber seems to have been firm but +prudent. "I do not remember," he tells us, "that ever I made a promise +to any that I did not keep, and, therefore, was cautious how I made +them." A fine sentiment, dear sir, eminently fit for a copy book, but +we can well believe that your promises never erred on the side of +extravagance. + +It is a fascinating subject, this study of old-time stage +life--fascinating, at least for the writer, who is tempted to run on +garrulously, describing the doings of Betterton in the new theatre, +and then wandering off to speak of the establishment of Italian opera +in England. But the limits of the chapter are reached; let us bid +good-bye to "Old Thomas," whose + + "Setting sun still shoots a glimmering ray, + Like ancient Rome, majestic in decay," + +and hasten to worship the rising sun, in the person of Mistress +Oldfield. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A BELLE OF METTLE + + +"For let me tell you, gentlemen, courage is the whole mystery of +making love, and of more use than conduct is in war; for the bravest +fellow in Europe may beat his brains out against the stubborn walls of +a town--but + + "Women born to be controll'd, + Stoop to the forward and the bold." + +These lines, taken hap-hazard from Colley Cibber's "Careless Husband," +contain the very spirit and essence of that old English comedy wherein +the hero was nothing more than a handsome rake and the heroine--well, +not a straitlaced Puritan or a prude. They breathe of the time when +honesty and virtue went for naught upon the stage, and the greatest +honours were awarded to the theatrical Prince Charming who proved +more unscrupulous than his fellows. Yet, strange as it may seem, the +"Careless Husband" is a vast improvement, in point of decency, on many +of the plays that preceded it, and marks a turning point in the moral +atmosphere of those that came after. "He who now reads it for the +first time," says Doran, "may be surprised to hear that in this comedy +a really serious and eminently successful attempt to reform the +licentiousness of the drama was made by one who had been himself a +great offender. Nevertheless the fact remains. In Lord Morelove we +have the first lover in English comedy, since licentiousness possessed +it, who is at once a gentleman and an honest man. In Lady Easy we have +what was hitherto unknown or laughed at--a virtuous married woman." To +go further, it may be added that the story points an unexceptionable +moral, proving that the best thing for a husband to do in this world +is to be true to the legitimate companion of his joys and sorrows. + +With all this in favour of the "Careless Husband," it is a curious +fact that the play, if presented in its original form, would not be +tolerated by the audiences of to-day.[A] The dialogue is often coarse +and suggestive, although for the most part full of sparkle and mother +wit, while the plot smacks of intrigue, lying and adultery. But it is +a fine work for all that; there is a delightful flavour about it, as +of old wine, and we feel in reading each successive scene that we are +uncorking a rare literary bottle of the vintage 1704. How much of the +vintage of 1898 will stand, equally well, the uncorking process if +applied in a century or two from now? How many plays in vogue at +present will be read with pleasure at that distant period? Will they +be the gruesome affairs of Ibsen, still tainted with their putrid air +of unhealthy mentality, or the clever performances of Henry Arthur +Jones; the dramas of Bronson Howard or the farcical skits of Mr. Hoyt? + +[Footnote A: Were the "Careless Husband" adapted to suit the exacting +requirements of nineteenth century modesty, its brilliancy would be +gone.] + +The "Careless Husband" has not been acted these many, many years, yet +to all who treasure the historical memories of the stage it should +be recalled with interest, for it was in this gay comedy that +the ravishing Nance shone forth in all the silvery light of her +resplendent genius. Read the pages of the old play in unsympathetic +mood and they may look musty and worm-eaten, but imagine Oldfield as +the sprightly Lady Betty Modish, the elegant Wilks as Sir Charles +Easy, and Cibber[A] himself in the empty-headed role of Lord +Foppington, and, presto! everything is changed. The yellow leaves are +white and fresh, the words stand out clear and distinct, and it takes +but a slight flight of fancy to hear the dingy auditorium of Drury +Lane echoing and re-echoing with laughter. For 'twas at Drury Lane +that the comedy first saw the light, in December 1704, and this was +the cast: + + LORD MORELOVE .... Mr. Powell. + LORD FOPPINGTON .... Mr. Cibber. + SIR CHARLES EASY .... Mr. Wilks. + LADY BETTY MODISE .... Mrs. Oldfield. + LADY EASY .... Mrs. Knight. + LADY GRAVEAIRS .... Mrs. Moore. + MRS. EDGING .... Mrs. Lucas. + +[Footnote A: Wilks had a singular talent in representing the graces of +nature; Cibber the deformity in the affectation of them.--STEELE.] + +How the performance came about let Cibber explain. The "Apologist" has +been speaking of Oldfield's success in Leonora, and he goes on to say: + +"Upon this unexpected sally, then, of the power and disposition of so +unforseen an actress, it was that I again took up the first two acts +of the 'Careless Husband,' which I had written the summer before, and +had thrown aside in despair of having justice done to the character +of Lady Betty Modish by any one woman then among us; Mrs. Verbruggen +being now in a very declining state of health, and Mrs. Bracegirdle +out of my reach and engag'd in another company: But, as I have said, +Mrs. Oldfield having thrown out such new proffers of a genius, I was +no longer at a loss for support; my doubts were dispell'd and I had +now a new call to finish it." + +[Illustration: ROBERT WILKS _After the Painting by_ JOHN ELLYS, 1732] + +And finish the play Cibber did, casting Nance for the volatile Lady +Betty and producing it under the most brilliant auspices. The whole +assignment of characters was admirable, but the first Lady Betty, +bursting upon the town in sudden glory, threw all her companions into +the shade. Never had such a fine lady of comedy been seen, said the +critics; never had an actress (who was not expected to be over-versed +in the affairs of the "quality") displayed such gentility, +high-breeding and evidence of being--Heaven knew how--quite "to the +manner born." Never was woman so bubbling over with humour, said the +people. As for Colley, he was delighted, of course, but believing that +an honest confession is good for the soul, even for the soul of a +Poet Laureate, he has left us the following graceful tribute to the +important part played by the actress in making the "Careless Husband" +a success: + +"Whatever favourable reception this comedy has met with from the +Publick, it would be unjust in me not to place a large share of it to +the account of Mrs. Oldfield; not only from the uncommon excellence of +her action, but even from her personal manner of conversing. There +are many sentiments in the character of Lady Betty Modish that I may +almost say were originally her own, or only dress'd with a little more +care than when they negligently fell from her lively humour." + +Here we have a clue to that vivacity and _naivete_ which distinguished +Anne off the stage as well as on. Can it be that she, rather than +Cibber, suggested this dashing bit of dialogue from the comedy: + + * * * * * + +"LADY BETTY. [_Meeting_ LADY EASY.] Oh! my dear! I am overjoyed to see +you! I am strangely happy to-day; I have just received my new scarf +from London, and you are most critically come to give me your opinion +of it. + +"LADY EASY. O! your servant, madame, I am a very indifferent judge, +you know: what, is it with sleeves? + +"LADY BETTY. O! 'tis impossible to tell you what it is! 'Tis all +extravagance both in mode and fancy, my dear; I believe there's six +thousand yards of edging in it--then such an enchanting slope from +the elbow--something so new, so lively, so noble, so _coquet_ and +charming--but you shall see it, my dear. + +"LADY EASY. Indeed I won't, my dear; I am resolv'd to mortify you for +being so wrongfully fond of a trifle. + +"LADY BETTY. Nay, now, my dear, you are ill-natured. + +"LADY EASY. Why truly, I am half angry to see a woman of your sense so +warmly concerned in the care of her outside; for when we have taken +our best pains about it, 'tis the beauty of the mind alone that gives +us lasting value. + +"LADY BETTY. Oh! my dear! my dear! you have been a married woman to a +fine purpose indeed, that know so little of the taste of mankind. Take +my word, a new fashion upon a fine woman is often a greater proof of +her value than you are aware of. + +"LADY EASY. That I can't comprehend; for you see, among the men, +nothing's more ridiculous than a new fashion. Those of the first sense +are always the last that come into' em. + +"LADY BETTY. That is, because the only merit of a man is his sense; +but doubtless the greatest value of a woman is her beauty; an homely +woman at the head of a fashion, would not be allowed in it by the men, +and consequently not followed by the women; so that to be successful +in one's fancy is an evident sign of one's being admir'd, and I always +take admiration for the best proof of beauty, as beauty certainly +is the source of power, as power in all creatures is the height of +happiness. + +"LADY EASY. At this rate you would rather be thought beautiful than +good. + +"LADY BETTY. As I had rather command than obey. The wisest homely +woman can't make a man of sense of a fool, but the veryest fool of a +beauty shall make an ass of a statesman; so that, in short, I can't +see a woman of spirit has any business in this world but to dress--and +make the men like her. + +"LADY EASY. Do you suppose this is a principle the men of sense will +admire you for? + +"LADY BETTY. I do suppose that when I suffer any man to like my +person, he shan't dare to find fault with my principle. + +"LADY EASY. But men of sense are not so easilly humbled. + +"LADY BETTY. The easiest of any. One has ten thousand times the +trouble with a coxcomb....The men of sense, my dear, make the best +fools in the world: their sincerity and good breeding throws them so +entirely into one's power, and gives one such an agreeable thirst of +using them ill, to show that power--'tis impossible not to quench it." + + * * * * * + +Compare this bristling dialogue with the inane stuff that too often +passes for comedy nowadays, and one finds all the difference between +real humour and flippancy. We stand at the threshold of the twentieth +century, boastfully proclaiming that we do everything better than ever +could our ancestors, yet where are the new comedies that might hold a +candle to the "Careless Husband," the "Inconstant," or the "School for +Scandal?" We may be presumptuous enough, nevertheless, to hold up that +much-quoted candle, but the light from it will burn pale and dim when +placed near the golden glow of the past. Would that we could purify +some of the old-time pieces and thus preserve them for future +generations of theatre-goers. Alas! that is impossible, for to cleanse +them with a sort of moral soap and water would destroy nearly all +their delightful glitter. + +The lines of Lady Betty must have fairly sizzled with the fire of +comedy as they fell from the pretty lips of Oldfield. No wonder that +Londoners thought the character bewitching; no wonder that Cibber +wrote so enthusiastically of the actress in that wonderful Apology. +"Had her birth plac'd her in a higher rank of life," he notes, perhaps +forgetting that her very descent entitled the poor sewing-girl to a +position which poverty denied her, "she had certainly appear'd in +reality what in this play she only excellently acted, an agreeably gay +woman of quality a little too conscious of her natural attractions. I +have often seen her in private societies where women of the best +rank might have borr'd some part of her behaviour without the least +diminution of their sense or dignity. And this very morning, when I am +now writing at the Bath, November 11, 1738, the same words were said +of her by a lady of condition, whose better judgment of her personal +merit in that light has embolden'd me to repeat them." + +The best of us have a wee bit of snobbishness buried deep in the +inmost recesses of our souls, and Colley, who was neither the best nor +the worst of humanity, had this quality well developed. To see that +one has but to read the above quotation between the lines. He loved a +lord as ardently as did the next man, and he attached to rank the same +exaggerated importance which pervades, with all the unwelcome odour of +sickening incense, the literature of his age. As Macklin so well said +of him, Nature formed Cibber for a coxcomb, and it is quite probable +that he took greater delight in being thought a leader of fashion than +a writer of charming plays. Indeed, he was careful to cultivate the +society of young noblemen, and this he was able to do by virtue of +his theatrical successes, and, more helpful still, by a levity of +character which stuck to him despite his great earnestness in many +directions. Perhaps his frivolity and his love of pleasure, including +the delights of the gaming table, may have been half assumed; perhaps +he was only playing one of his many parts. He certainly succeeded in +the role; he enlivened the dissipations of many a beau by his quaint +conceits and flashes of humour, and went on his way rejoicing that he +could be the boon companion of twenty idle lords.[A] + +[Footnote A: Colley Cibber, one of the earliest of the dramatic +autobiographers, is also one of the most amusing. He flourished in wig +and embroidery, player, poet, and manager, during the Augustan age of +Queen Anne, somewhat earlier and somewhat later. A most egregious +fop, according to all accounts, he was, but a very pleasant one +notwithstanding, as your fop of parts is apt to be. Pope gained but +little in the warfare he waged with him, for this plain reason--that +the great poet accuses his adversary of dullness, which was not by +any means one of his sins, instead of selecting one of the numerous +faults, such as pertness, petulance, and presumption, of which he was +really guilty.--M.R. Mitford.] + +If he was surprised, therefore, that Oldfield could act the high-born +woman of fashion, the "lady of condition," who shall blame him? A +tavern does not seem the proper school for deportment, and, though one +has the bluest blood in Christendom, humble surroundings may keep it +from flowing very freely. Still, Anne was naturally a thoroughbred; +the girl had a personal distinction which was hers by right of +inheritance, and what she lacked in elegance she was quick to acquire +as she grew into womanhood. + +It is a strange coincidence that the actress who in after years +rejuvenated Lady Betty[A], and made her again a living, breathing +creature, had at one period of her career been a tavern girl. Abington +it was who seemed the very incarnation of aristocracy, and made the +audience forget that, high as she stood upon the stage, she had once +been almost in the gutter. + +[Footnote A: Mrs. Abington, one of the most graceful and spirited +actresses of the eighteenth century, was born in 1731, shortly after +the death of Oldfield. She had the honour of being the original Lady +Teazle, a part which she rehearsed under the direction of Sheridan, +and she enjoyed the further distinction of being detested by Garrick. +The latter said of her: "She is below the thought of any honest man or +woman."] + +The same welcome anomaly is noticed now, when the actresses who play +the women of the "hupper circles" with the greatest delicacy and +keenness of touch are frequently the products of the lower or middle +class. On the other hand, the _dame de societe_ who trips lightly from +the drawing-room to the stage, amid the blare of trumpets and the +excitement of her friends, usually fails to make a mark. To be sure, +several of them have made marks--very black ones. + +Now let us turn the pages of the "Careless Husband," as we scan them +in Lowndes's "British Theatre," and see if we cannot extract some +amusement therefrom. The scene opens in the lodgings of Sir Charles +Easy, who, like many other dramatic personages of the eighteenth +century, has a name that signifies his character. Easy, Sir Charles is +in every sense of the word, particularly easy as to morals, for the +possession of a lovely wife does not prevent him from prosecuting an +amour with a woman of quality, Lady Graveairs, or having a vulgar +intrigue with the maid of his own spouse. In fine, he is a right +amiable gentleman, according to the curious standards of long ago; a +very prince of good fellows, who in these days would pass for a cad. + +We are hardly begun with the comedy before we are introduced to this +paragon, who enters just after Lady Easy and the maid, Edging, have +discovered fresh proofs of his flirtation with Lady Graveairs. Charles +is inclined to be philosophical in a blase, tired way, and he says: +"How like children do we judge of happiness! When I was stinted in my +fortune almost everything was a pleasure to me, because most things +then being out of my reach, I had always the pleasure of hoping for +'em; now fortune's in my hand she's as insipid as an old acquaintance. +It's mighty silly, faith, just the same thing by my wife, too; I am +told she's extremely handsome [as though the sad devil didn't know +it], nay, and have heard a great many people say she is certainly the +best woman in the world--why, I don't know but she may, yet I could +never find that her person or good qualities gave me any concern. In +my eye, the woman has no more charms than my mother"--and we may +be sure that Sir Charles had never bothered himself much about the +attractions of the last named lady. + +Then the fair Edging comes to centre of stage and the following +innocent dialogue ensues: + + * * * * * + +"EDGING. Hum--he takes no notice of me yet--I'll let him see I can +take as little notice of him. [_She walks by him gravely, he turns her +about and holds her; she struggles_.] Pray, sir! + +"SIR CHARLES. A pretty pert air that--I'll humour it--what's the +matter, child--are you not well? Kiss me, hussy. + +"EDGING. No, the deuce fetch me if I do. [Here was a model servant, of +course.] + +"SIR CHARLES. Has anything put thee out of humour, love? + +"EDGING. No, sir, 'tis not worthy my being out of humour at ... don't +you suffer my lady to huff me every day as if I were her dog, or had +no more concern with you--I declare I won't bear it and she shan't +think to huff me. For aught I know I am as agreeable as she; and +though she dares not take any notice of your baseness to her, you +shan't think to use me so--" + + * * * * * + +But enough of this delectable conversation. The picture which it gives +us is unpleasant and coarse; there is about it none of the glitter +that can make vice so alluring. We will also skip an interview between +Sir Charles and Lady Easy (who thinks it the part of diplomacy to +hide her knowledge of her master's peccadilloes), and hurry on to the +entrance of Lord Morelove, our hero. Morelove, who must have been +admirably played by the fiery, impetuous Powell, is neither a +libertine, nor, on the other hand, a prig; he is simply a gentlemanly +and essentially human fellow who is consumed with an honest passion +for Lady Betty Modish. Nay, he would be glad to marry the fine +creature, but she has quarrelled with him and he is now telling Sir +Charles all about it: + + * * * * * + +"So, disputing with her about the conduct of women, I took the liberty +to tell her how far I thought she err'd in hers; she told me I was +rude and that she would never believe any man could love a woman +that thought her in the wrong in anything she had a mind to [Rather +exacting, are you not, Lady Betty?], at least if he dared to tell her +so. This provok'd me into her whole character, with as much spite and +civil malice, as I have seen her bestow upon a woman of true beauty, +when the men first toasted her:[A] so in the middle of my wisdom, she +told me she desir'd to be alone, that I would take my odious proud +heart along with me and trouble her no more. I bow'd very low, and as +I left the room I vow'd I never wou'd, and that my proud heart should +never be humbled by the outside of a fine woman. About an hour after, +I whipp'd into my chaise for London, and have never seen her since." + +[Footnote A: Many of the wits of the last age will assert that the +word (toast), in its present sense, was known among them in their +youth, and had its rise from an accident at the town of Bath, in the +reign of Charles II. It happened that, on a public day, a celebrated +beauty of those times was in the Cross Bath, and one of the crowd of +her admirers took a glass of the water in which the fair one stood, +and drank her health to the company. There was in the place a gay +fellow half fuddled, who offered to jump in, and swore, though he +liked not the liquor, he would have the toast. He was opposed in his +resolution; yet this whim gave foundation to the present honour which +is done to the lady we mention in our liquors, who has ever since been +called a Toast.--The _Tatler_.] + + * * * * * + +What a quaint, circumspect and very ceremonious affair must that +lovers' row have been. No swearing, no slang or loud talking, but +everything deliberate and in the best of form. Lady Betty telling +Morelove to go about his business, and that quickly, but doing so with +a stately elegance worthy of the great Mrs. Barry; the suitor bowing +low, with his white hand pressed against that "odious proud heart" +which is gently breaking at the thought of departing. What a nice +painting it would make for a Watteau fan. + +Thus nearly all our characters have their entrances, Lady Betty is +revealed to us through the medium of the lively dialogue quoted a few +pages back, and then there is another stir. In comes Lord Foppington, +otherwise Colley Cibber, in all the vapid glory of fine clothes, and +a great periwig. A very prince of coxcombs, with his soft smile and +conscious air of superiority--a mere bag of vanity, whose emptiness is +partly hidden by gorgeous raiment, gold embroidery, rings, snuff-box, +muff and what-not. With what genteel condescension does he greet Sir +Charles; how gracefully nonchalant is he to my Lord Morelove. "My dear +agreeable! _Que je t'embrasse! Pardi! Il y a cent ans que je ne t'ai +veu_. My lord, I am your lordship's most obedient humble servant." + +So Foppington takes his place in the comedy, and begins to play his +brainless but important part. He, the disconsolate Morelove, and the +brilliant Lady Betty all meet at dinner with Sir Charles and Lady +Easy. Of course the hero makes an unsuccessful attempt to regain the +good graces of his inamorata, and, of course, the coxcomb carries on a +violent flirtation with her in the angry face of his rival. With the +meal over, and everybody on the _qui vive_, this scene ensues: + + * * * * * + +Enter Foppington (who has been chatting to the ladies and who now +seeks the post-dinner conversation of his host and Lord Morelove). + +"FOPPINGTON. Nay, pr'ythee, Sir Charles, let's have a little of thee. +We have been so chagrin without thee, that, stop my breath [what a +bloodcurdling oath, so suggestive of the awful curses of our own +_jeunesse d'oree_], the ladies are gone, half asleep, to church for +want of thy company. + +"SIR CHARLES. That's hard indeed, while your lordship was among 'em. +Is Lady Betty gone too? + +"FOP. She was just upon the wing. But I caught her by the snuff-box, +and she pretends to stay to see if I'll give it her again or no. + +"MORE. Death! 'tis that I gave her, and the only present she ever +would receive from me. [_Aside to_ SIR CHARLES.] Ask him how he came +by it? + +"SIR CHARLES. Pr'ythee don't be uneasy. Did she give it to you, my +lord? + +"FOP. Faith, Charles, I can't say she did or she did not, but we were +playing the fool, and I took it--_a la_--pshah--I can't tell thee in +French, neither, but Horace touches it to a nicety--'twas _Pignas +direptum male pertinaci_. [_Nota Bene_: Our modern comedians seldom +quote Horace; their humour is not of the classic kind.] + +"MORE. So! But I must bear it. If your lordship has a mind to the box, +I'll stand by you in the keeping of it. + +"FOP. My lord, I'm passionately oblig'd to you, but I am afraid I +cannot answer your hazarding so much of the lady's favour. + +"MORE. Not at all, my lord; 'tis possible I may not have the same +regard to her frown that your lordship has. [Here's a bit of human +nature. Morelove stands in awe of that frown, but he doth valiantly +protest, and that too much, that the displeasure of Lady Betty is no +more to him than a dozen of ciphers.] + +"FOP. That's a bite, I am sure--he'd give a joint of his little +finger to be as well with her as I am. [_Aside_.] But here she comes! +Charles, stand by me. Must not a man be a vain coxcomb now, to think +this creature follow'd one? + +"SIR CHARLES. Nothing so plain, my lord. + +"FOP. Flattering devil." + +_Enter_ LADY BETTY. + +"LADY BETTY. Pshah, my Lord Foppington! Pr'ythee don't play the fool +now, but give me my snuff-box. Sir Charles, help me to take it from +him. + +"SIR CHARLES. You know I hate trouble, madame. + +"LADY BETTY. Pooh! you'll make me stay still; prayers are half over +now. + +"FOP. If you'll promise me not to go to church, I'll give it you. + +"LADY BETTY. I'll promise nothing at all, for positively I will have +it. [_Struggling with him_. + +"FOP. Then comparatively I won't part with it, ha! ha! + +[_Struggles with her_. + +"LADY BETTY. O you devil, you have kill'd my arm! Oh! Well--if you'll +let me have it, I'll give you a better. + +"MORE. [_Aside to_ SIR CHARLES.] O Charles! that has a view of distant +kindness in it. + +"FOP. Nay, now I keep it superlatively. I find there's a secret value +in it. + +"LADY BETTY. O dismal! upon my word, I am only ashamed to give it you. +Do you think I wou'd offer such an odious fancy'd thing to anybody I +had the least value for? + +"SIR CHARLES. [_Aside to_ LORD MORELOVE.] Now it comes a little +nearer, methinks it does not seem to be any kindness at all. + +"FOP. Why, really, madame, upon second view, it has not extremely the +mode of a lady's utensil: are you sure it never held anything but +snuff? + +"LADY BETTY. O! you monster! + +"FOP. Nay, I only ask because it seems to me to have very much the air +and fancy of Monsieur Smoakandfot's tobacco-box. + +"MORE. I can bear no more. + +"SIR CHARLES. Why don't then; I'll step into the company and return to +your relief immediately. + +[_Exit_. + +"MORE. [_To_ LADY BETTY.] Come, madame, will your ladyship give me +leave to end the difference? Since the slightness of the thing may +let you bestow it without any mark of favour, shall I beg it of your +ladyship? + +"LADY BETTY. O my lord, no body sooner. I beg you give it my lord. + +[_Looking earnestly on_ LORD FOPPINGTON, _who, smiling, gives it to_ +LORD MORELOVE _and then bows gravely to her_]. + +"MORE. Only to have the honour of restoring it to your lordship; and +if there be any other trifle of mine your lordship has a fancy to, +tho' it were a mistress, I don't know any person in the world who has +so good a claim to my resignation." + + * * * * * + +In the hands of Powell, Cibber, and Oldfield this scene must have had +all the sparkle of champagne; but let us hope, speaking of wine, that +the prince of paragons, Morelove, was perfectly sober. Or shall we +say comparatively sober?--for when bibulous George had just a dash of +spirits within him (and that was nearly always) there came a roseate +hue to his acting which rather added to its romantic colour. Sometimes +this colour was laid on too garishly, as the supply of fire-water +happened to be larger,[A] and Sir John Vanbrugh has himself left it on +record that Powell, as Worthy, came well nigh spoiling the original +production of the "Relapse." "I own," writes Sir John, "the first +night this thing was acted, some indecencies had like to have +happened; but it was not my fault. The fine gentleman of the play, +drinking his mistress's health in Nantes brandy, from six in the +morning to the time he waddled up upon the stage in the evening, had +toasted himself up to such a pitch of vigour, I confess I once gave up +Amanda for gone; and am since, with all due respect to Mrs. Rogers, +very sorry she escaped; for I am confident a certain lady (let no one +take it to herself that is handsome) who highly blames the play, for +the barrenness of the conclusion, would then have allowed it a very +natural close." It should be added that the Mrs. Rogers herein +mentioned as playing Amanda was a capable tragic actress whose +ambition it was to enact none but virtuous women. Her own virtue--but +we are dipping into scandal.[B] + +[Footnote A: To the folly of intoxication he added the horrors of +debt, and was so hunted by the sheriffs' officers that he usually +walked the streets with a sword (sheathed) in his hand; and if he saw +any of them at a distance, he would roar out, "Get on the other side +of the way, you dog!" The bailiff, who knew his old customer, would +obligingly answer, "We do not want you _now_, Master Powell." EDMUND +BELLCHAMBERS.] + +[Footnote B: Her fondness for virtue on the stage she began to think +might persuade the world that it had made an impression on her private +life; and the appearance of it actually went so far that, in an +epilogue to an obscure play, the profits of which were given to her, +and wherein she acted a part of impregnable chastity, she bespoke +the favour of the ladies by a protestation that in honour of their +goodness and virtue she would dedicate her unblemished life to their +example. Part of this vestal vow, I remember, was contained in the +following verse:-- + + "Study to live the character I play." + +But alas! how weak are the strongest works of art when Nature besieges +it.--CIBBER.] + +As for the "Careless Husband," the more one reads from it the more +cause is there to regret the utter hopelessness of reviving a play so +honeycombed by inuendo. How delightfully, for instance, would some of +the badinage between Morelove and the spirited Lady Betty have been +treated in the earlier days of the Daly Company, with John Drew and +Miss Rehan as the lovers. We can picture the two, as they would have +given the following lines, the one gentlemanly and effective, the +other imperious, liquid-voiced, and radiant of humour: + + * * * * * + +"MORELOVE. Do you know, madame, I have just found out, that upon your +account I have made myself one of the most ridiculous puppies upon the +face of the earth--I have upon my faith! Nay, and so extravagantly +such--ha! ha! ha!--that it's at last become a jest even to myself; and +I can't help laughing at it for the soul of me; ha! ha! ha! + +"LADY BETTY. [_Aside_.] I want to cure him of that laugh now. My lord, +since you are so generous, I'll tell you another secret. Do you +know, too, that I still find (spite of all your great wisdom, and my +contemptible qualities, as you are pleased now and then to call them), +do you know, I say, that I see under all this, you still love me with +the same helpless passion; and can your vast foresight imagine I won't +use you accordingly, for these extraordinary airs you are pleased to +give yourself.' [Talk of the independence of the 'New Woman.' Who +could have been more self-assertive than this eighteenth century +belle?] + +"MORE. O by all means, madame, 'tis as you should, and I expect it +whenever it is in your power. [_Aside_] Confusion! + +"LADY BETTY. My lord, you have talked to me this half-hour without +confessing pain. [_Pauses and affects to gape_.] Only remember it. + +"MORE. Hell and tortures! + +"LADY BETTY. What did you say, my lord? + +"MORE. Fire and furies! + +"LADY BETTY. Ha! ha! he's disorder'd. Now I am easy. My Lord +Foppington, have you a mind to your revenge at piquet? + +"FOP. I have always a mind to an opportunity of entertaining your +ladyship, madame. + +[LADY BETTY _coquets with_ LORD FOPPINGTON. + +"MORE. O Charles, the insolence of this woman might furnish out a +thousand devils. + +"SIR CHARLES. And your temper is enough to furnish a thousand such +women. Come away--I have business for you upon the terrace. + +"MORE. Let me but speak one word to her. + +"SIR CHARLES. Not a syllable; the tongue's a weapon you always have +the worst at. For I see you have no guard, and she carries a devilish +edge. + +"LADY BETTY. My lord, don't let anything I've said frighten you away; +for if you have the least inclination to stay and rail, you know the +old conditions; 'tis but your asking me pardon next day, and you may +give your passion any liberty you think fit. + +"MORE. Daggers and death! [What a picturesque, old-fashioned oath, is +it not? "Daggers and death!" Writers of English melodramas, please +take notice.] + +"SIR CHARLES. Is the man distracted? + +"MORE. Let me speak to her now, or I shall burst.[A] + +"SIR CHARLES. Upon condition you'll speak no more of her to me, my +lord, do as you please. + +"MORE. Pr'ythee pardon me--I know not what to do. + +"SIR CHARLES. Come along, I'll set you to work, I warrant you. Nay, +nay, none of your parting ogles--will you go? + +"MORE. Yes, and I hope for ever. + +[_Exit_ SIR CHARLES _pulling away_ LORD MORELOVE." + +[Footnote A: Here is the way in which several of our refined farcical +writers would have given it: + +MORELOVE. Let me speak to her now, or I shall burst. + +SIR CHARLES. Upon condition that you'll not burst here, in the +parlour, do as you please.] + + * * * * * + +There is about this and many other scenes the fragrance of an old +perfume, as of lavender. We take up the book after years of neglect, +and the odour, which is not that of sanctity, is still perceptible--a +potent reminder of the past. And Lady Betty Modish? She must +be--well-nigh on to two hundred years old (a thousand florid pardons, +sweet madame, for bringing in your age), but she is as blooming, +saucy, and interesting as ever. + +What becomes of Betty in the comedy, the reader may ask. She goes on +her triumphant way, the same cruel enchantress, until the last act, +when she is quite ready to fall into the arms of Lord Morelove. Sir +Charles Easy, touched by the constancy and devotion of his wife, +announces that he will mend his wilful habits, and Lord Foppington, +who flattered himself that Lady Betty was madly in love with him, +accepts his dismissal with great good humour. Then we have a song +setting forth how: + + "Sabina with an angel's face + By Love ordain'd for joy, + Seems of the Siren's cruel race, + To charm and then destroy. + + "With all the arts of look and dress, + She fans the fatal fire; + Through pride, mistaken oft for grace, + She bids the swains expire. + + "The god of Love, enraged to see + The nymph defy his flame, + Pronounced his merciless decree + Against the haughty dame: + + "'Let age with double speed o'ertake her, + Let love the room of pride supply; + And when the lovers all forsake her, + A spotless virgin let her die.'" + +Next, with the sound of this horrible warning ringing in our ears, Sir +Charles steps forward to give the tag: "If then [turning to Lady Easy] +the unkindly thought of what I have been hereafter shou'd intrude upon +thy growing quiet, let this reflection teach thee to be easy: + + "Thy wrong, when greatest, most thy virtue prov'd; + And from that virtue found, I blus'd and truly lov'd." + +So ends the comedy in a blaze of morality. We almost see Sir Charles +fitting on a pair of newly-made wings, as he prepares to float away to +some better planet; but let him go, by all means. We shall remain here +and watch that fair sinner, Oldfield. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +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 _debonnaire_ 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 a 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 _risque_ 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: + + L 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. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A DEAD HERO + + + "The soul, secur'd in her existence, smiles + At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. + The stars shall fade away, the sun himself + Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years; + But thou shall flourish in immortal youth, + Unhurt amidst the war of elements, + The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds." + +So doth noble Cato philosophise when, in Addison's stately tragedy, he +gazes on his sword and plans to admit the Grim Visitor whom the most +of us wish to keep without our threshold until the last fatal moment. +How those lines used to thrill the classic hearts of our ancestors; +how Barton Booth, who + + "shook the stage, and made the people stare," + +could put into this mild plea for suicide a fervour that caused Drury +Lane to ring with applause. What mattered it if the actor, as Pope +related, wore a long wig and flowered gown? Cato was none the less +himself for that, nor did Booth's elegance of delivery seem unwelcome +because his clothes pictured the dandified spirit of the eighteenth +century. + +"Cato!" The play is forgotten now, but there was magic in its name in +the palmy days of its author, gentle, kindly Joseph Addison. So potent +was that magic, such vivid impression did the fate of the grand old +Roman make on more than one mind, when thus retold in lofty verse, +that the tragedy was cited as a justification of self-destruction. + + "What Cato did, and Addison approved + Cannot be wrong." + +These lines, written on a scrap of paper by Eustace Budgell, were +found shortly after the death of that odd genius. From being an +honoured contributor to the _Spectator_, Budgell descended to the +depths of infamy, poverty, and despair, and so one day he threw +himself out of a boat under London Bridge, and the waters of the +Thames closed over him for ever. He owed his early prosperity to +Addison, his cousin, and by way of gratitude he sought to throw upon +his benefactor's memory the odium of this moist and melancholy exit +from the world. + +Their lies no odium, nevertheless, where Addison is concerned. His +own life may have been clouded towards the last by the mists of +disappointment, but to us admiring moderns he is all sunshine. Not the +fiery sunshine of summer, but the genial, dignified light of an autumn +afternoon when nature seems in most reflective mood. For there was +nothing impetuous or ardent in the composition of this good-humoured +philosopher; and while he railed so well at the petty sins and +vanities of the England in which he dwelt, the satire had naught of +venom, malice, or uncharitableness. + +Nowadays Addison and the _Spectator_ go rolling down to fame together, +an indivisible reminder--the very essence indeed--of the virtues, +peccadilloes, greatness and meanness of early eighteenth century life. +We may forget that Joe was quite a politician in his prime, we are +even loth to recall that there was ever such a play as "Cato," but so +long as the English language has power to charm, the dear old volumes +of the _Spectator_ will stand out as a delightful landmark of that +literature which forms the heritage of American and Briton alike. + +How fondly do we turn the pages of the well-read essays, with their +pictures of good Sir Roger de Coverley, Will Honeycomb, and the rest +of that happy crew. And over what portrait do we linger more lovingly +than that of the _Spectator_ himself, wherein there is many a stroke +of the pen that brings Addison in view. When he tells us, for +instance: "I threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and +would not make use of my coral until they had taken away the bells +from it," the writer is indulging in a pretty bit of humour at the +expense of his own sedate youth. + + * * * * * + +"I have passed my latter years," the philosopher goes on to say, "in +this city (London), where I am frequently seen in most public places, +though there are not above half a dozen of my select friends that know +me.... There is no place of general resort wherein I do not often make +my appearance: sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a round of +politicians at Will's,[A] and listening with great attention to the +narratives that are made in those little circular audiences; sometimes +I smoke a pipe at Child's,[B] and while I seem attentive to nothing +but the postman, overhear the conversation of every table in the room. +I appear on Sunday nights at St. James' coffee house, and sometimes +join the little committee of politics in the inner room, as one who +comes there to hear and improve. My face is likewise very well known +at the Grecian, the Cocoa Tree, and in the theatres both of Drury Lane +and the Haymarket. I have been taken for a merchant upon the Exchange +for above these ten years, and sometimes pass for a Jew in the +assembly of stockbrokers at Jonathan's. In short, wherever I see a +cluster of people, I always mix with them, though I never open my lips +but in my own club." + +[Footnote A: Will's and Child's were popular coffee-houses, as were +also the Grecian, St. James', and the Cocoa Tree.] + +[Footnote B: See footnote on page 97.] + + * * * * * + +It is easy to fancy Addison, shy but ever observant, mingling with the +people who thronged the coffee-houses and there settled the affairs +of the nation, discussed their neighbours, and sipped their coffee +or stronger drink, as the case might be. He must have laughed in his +sleeve many a time as he heard the know-it-alls predicting that the +British nation was on the brink of perdition or announcing, in the +most confidential of manners, the secret policies of his Christian +Majesty, Louis XIV. of France. Probably Joe agreed with Steele, +who, in speaking of a certain coffee-house, observed that in it men +differed rather in the time of day wherein they made a figure, than in +any real greatness above one another. + +[Illustration: JOSEPH ADDISON By SIR GODFREY KNELLER] + +"I, who am at the coffee-house at six in the morning," Dick writes +on,[A] "know that my friend Beaver the haberdasher has a levee of +more undissembled friends and admirers than most of the courtiers +or generals of Great Britain. Every man about him has, perhaps, a +newspaper in his hand; but none can pretend to guess what step will be +taken in any one court of Europe, till Mr. Beaver has thrown down his +pipe, and declares what measures the allies must enter into upon this +new posture of affairs. Our coffee-house is near one of the inns of +court, and Beaver has the audience and admiration of his neighbours +from six till within a quarter of eight, at which time he is +interrupted by the students of the house; some of whom are ready +dressed for Westminster at eight in a morning, with faces as busy as +if they were retained in every cause there; and others come in their +night gowns to saunter away their time, as if they never designed to +go thither. + +[Footnote A: _Spectator_, No. 49.] + +"I do not know that I meet in any of my walks, objects which move both +my spleen and laughter so effectually as those young fellows at the +Greecian, Squire's, Searle's, and all other coffee-houses adjacent +to the law, who rise early for no other purpose but to publish their +laziness. One would think these young virtuosos take a gay cap and +slippers, with a scarf and party-coloured gown, to be ensigns of +dignity; for the vain things approach each other with an air which +shews they regard one another for their vestments. I have observed +that the superiority among these proceeds from an opinion of gallantry +and fashion. The gentleman in the strawberry sash, who presides so +much over the rest, has, it seems, subscribed to every opera this +last winter, and is supposed to receive favours from one of the +actresses."[A] + +[Footnote A: Come, says my Friend, let us step into this Coffee House +here; as you are a Stranger in the Town, it will afford you some +Diversion. Accordingly in we went, where a parcel of Muddling +Muckworms were as busy as so many Rats in an old Cheese Loft; some +Going, some Coming, some Scribling, some Talking, some Drinking, some +Smoaking, others Jangling: and the whole Room stinking of Tobacco, +like a Dutch Scoot or a Boatswain's Cabbin. The Walls being hung with +Gilt Frames, as a Farriers shop with Horse shoes; which contain'd +abundance of Rarities viz. Nectar and Ambrosia, May Dew, Golden +Elixirs, Popular Pills, Liquid Snuff, Beautifying Waters, Dentifrisis +Drops, Lozenges, all as infallible as the Pope, + + Where every one above the rest + Deservedly has gain'd the Name of Best + +(as the famous Saffold has it).--WARD.] + +As the day lengthens the scene changes. The gentleman with the +strawberry sash and uncertain morals and his servile subjects +disappear, giving place "to men who have business or good sense in +their faces, and come to the coffee-house either to transact affairs +or enjoy conversation. The persons to whose behaviour and discourse I +have most regard, are such as are between these two sorts of men; +such as have not spirits too active to be happy and well pleased in a +private condition, not complexions too warm to make them neglect the +duties and relations of life. Of this sort of men consist the worthier +part of mankind; of these are all good fathers, generous brothers, +sincere friends, and faithful subjects. Their entertainments are +derived rather from reason than imagination; which is the cause that +there is no impatience or instability in their speech or action. You +see in their countenances they are at home, and in quiet possession of +the present instant as it passes, without desiring to quicken it by +gratifying any passion or prosecuting any new design. These are the +men formed for society, and those little communities which we express +by the word neighbourhood." + +Thus moved the panorama of the coffee-house. Perhaps nothing +contributed more importantly to the gossip of the latter than did the +mention of quiet Addison himself after the night in April, 1713, which +witnessed the triumph of "Cato." The essayist had always possessed, +like many other literary men, a secret longing to be the author of a +prosperous tragedy, and in his earlier days made bold to submit a play +to the inspection of Dryden. The poet read it with polite interest, +and, on returning the manuscript to the author, expressed therefor his +profound esteem, with many apologetic _et ceteras_, and only regretted +that, in his humble opinion, the piece, if placed upon the stage, +"would not meet with its deserved success." In other words, Dryden +saw that Addison was sadly wanting in dramatic instinct, but was too +forbearing to say this in plain, set terms. As for the young man, +he must have felt much after the fashion of the aspiring writer who +receives an article back from an unappreciative magazine with a +printed slip warning him that "the rejection of manuscript does not +imply lack of merit," &c. &c., the whole thing being intended as a +moral cushion to break the suddenly descending spirits of the sender. + +Years later the great man was favoured with another cushion of this +sort by no less a person than his friend Alexander Pope, whose +august criticism he asked in behalf of "Cato." The major part of the +play--all of it, in fact, excepting the last act--had been written +when Addison first began to fall under the passionate influence of +French tragedy, with its tiresome regularity of form and attempted +imitation of the classic drama.[A] And a powerful influence it was +in the days of good Queen Anne, so powerful, verily, that it almost +emasculated the art of play-writing, and for a time well nigh bereft +the stage of originality of thought or freedom of expression. Form, +form, that was the cry still ringing in the ears of the author when he +put the finishing touches to a production which was to be famous for +the nonce, and then go down in the dark waters of oblivion with the +wreck of many like it. + +[Footnote A: Just as the school of Racine and Boileau set its face +against the extravagances of the romantic coteries, so Addison and his +English followers, adopting the principles of the French classicists, +applied them to the reformation of the English theatre. Hence arose +a great revival of respect for the political doctrines of Aristotle, +regard for the unities of time and place, attention to the proprieties +of sentiment and diction--in a word, for all those characteristics +of style afterwards summed up in the phrase "correctness."--W.J. +COURTHOPE'S "Addison."] + +"When Mr. Addison," related Pope, "had finished his 'Cato,' he brought +it to me, desired to have my sincere opinion of it, and left it with +me for three or four days. I gave him my opinion of it sincerely, +which was, 'that I thought he had better not act it, and that he would +get reputation enough by only printing it.' This I said as thinking +the lines well written, but the piece was not theatrical enough. Some +time after Mr. Addison said 'that his own opinion was the same with +mine, but that some particular friends of his, whom he could not +disoblige, insisted on its being acted,'" + +These particular friends who were not to be disobliged seem to have +been shining lights of the Whig party. It was feared that the Tories +were conspiring to reinstate the male line of Stuart the moment Queen +Anne should take herself to another world, and the friends of the +Hanoverian succession grew sorely anxious. They were filled with +delight, therefore, on hearing that Addison had, peacefully slumbering +in his desk, a drama which, as Maynwaring explained, was written not +for the love scenes, "but to support the old Roman and English public +spirit."[A] Here was a chance to inspire the people with a passion for +liberty; the story of Cato, served up in all the elegance of French +style, should point a moral against the claims of the Pretender, and +pure politics might thus be taught from the rostrum of a theatre! + +[Footnote A: Those who _affected_ to think liberty in danger, and had +_affected_ likewise to think that a stage play might preserve it.--DR. +JOHNSON.] + +So it came about that one fine day the company at Drury Lane began +the rehearsal of "Cato," under circumstances, however, which hardly +pointed to a successful production. There appears to have been some +difficulty in the assignment of parts, and it is easy to imagine +that at first the players exercised their prerogative of growling--a +prerogative not calculated to dispel the doubts fast assailing Addison +as to the outcome of the performance. Nance Oldfield made no fuss +at playing Marcia, Cato's daughter, for she was ever disposed to be +tractable; but when it came to casting the noble Roman himself the +trouble began. The story runs that the part was first offered +to Cibber, and that he sensibly refused it. Colley might make a +delightful fop, but the playing of dandies could hardly lead one up +very gracefully to the handling of Cato. + +Next came the suggestion that John Mills[A] should try the character, +but fortunately he displayed no more enthusiasm for it than did +Cibber. Cato was too old a person for him to act, he said, and so +declined to have anything to do with the elderly hero. Afterwards he +was cast for the less important role of Sempronius, which proved in +every way a better disposition of affairs, for Mills was a plodder +rather than a genius. He belonged to the order of actors to whom, +in the present day, we apply the charitable word of painstaking, an +adjective which shows very plainly the nature of the man, while it +likewise allows the critic to escape the charge of unkindness. We all +know the painstaking player, and always cheerfully acknowledge his +virtues, but who shall blame us if, after giving him the benefit of +his earnestness, we yawn and creep out into the lobby while he holds +the stage? + +[Footnote A: Mills was considered one of the most useful actors that +ever served in a theatre, but, though invested by the patronage of +Wilks with many parts of the highest order, he had no pretensions +to quit the secondary line in which he ought to have been +placed.--BELLCHAMBERS.] + +That Mills sometimes inspired this feeling of boredom may be imagined +from the way in which his performance of Macbeth was once received. To +those who remembered how magnificently Betterton had played the part, +the chill formalism of the new aspirant must have seemed presumptuous, +and one night the contrast proved too much for a country gentleman +possessed of more honesty than politeness. After watching the progress +of the tragedy with growing indignation his feelings became unbearable +at a certain point in the fourth act, where George Powell came on +as Lennox. "For God's sake, George," shouted the squire, "give us a +speech and let me go home!"[A] + +[Footnote A: "I recollect," says Bellchambers, "an incident of the +same sort occurring at Bristol, where a very indifferent actor +declaimed so long and to such little purpose that an honest farmer, +who sat in the pit, started up with evident signs of disgust, and +waving his hand, to motion the speaker off, cried out, 'Tak 'un away, +tak 'un away, and let's have another.'"] + +Thus every one must have given a sigh of relief when industrious John +objected to the age of Cato; every one, at least, excepting Wilks, who +had taken this actor under his theatrical wing and sought to elevate +him above one far greater than either of them--Barton Booth. The fact +was that Wilks hid within his breast the troublesome, green-eyed +monster of jealousy; he feared the rising genius of Booth, and, now +that he was part manager of Drury Lane, probably took pains to keep +the rival as much as possible in the background. Unfortunately for +this plan of annihilation the screen provided in the commonplace +person of Mills proved entirely too flimsy to hide the coming man. +Barton Booth was in many ways an ideal actor, in that he was blessed +with the poetic imagination and scholarship to understand his roles +and the tragic power to play them. He had, furthermore, a voice of +marvellous resonance, an aristocratic bearing and a handsome face and +figure which were sure to attract attention, whether he appeared +upon the stage or amid the more genial confines of the Bedford +coffee-house. + +It was to Booth, therefore, that Cato was finally assigned, the other +masculine parts being handed over to Cibber, Mills, Wilks, Powell, +Ryan, Bowman, and Keen. The latter was a popular actor of majestic +mould who used to play the King in "Hamlet" (a role too often left +to the mercies of third-rate mouthers) in a fashion which would +have justified the loyal and historic gentleman who preferred that +character to all others in the play. As already mentioned, Marcia was +to be acted by Oldfield, and to Mistress Porter, who usually revelled +in the delineation of high and mighty passions, was given gentle, +tearful Lucia, daughter to Lucius (Keen). + +The rehearsals now went on apace, but evidently without much show of +enthusiasm. Addison assisted, probably dispirited and nervous but +outwardly unruffled, for he always presented a well-starched front to +the watching-world. Honest Dick Steele looked on, and in that frank, +ingenuous way he told his friends, with perhaps a suspicious flush +on his winsome face and a swimming gleam in his eyes, that he was +preparing to pack the theatre on the opening night in the interests of +worried Joe. Poor, good-hearted Dick! Then there was Parson Swift, who +sat behind the scenes with mild interest on his face and a sneer in +that ugly, gnarled heart of his. "We stood on the stage," he writes to +Stella, "and it was foolish enough to see the actors prompting every +moment, and the poet directing them, and the drab that acts Cato's +daughter (Mrs. Oldfield) out in the midst of a passionate part, and +then calling out 'What's next?'" + +Lastly came the great Mr. Pope, with that poor, deformed body and +brilliant mind. He was not content merely to be a "looker on in +Vienna," or in Utica; he pottered around unceasingly, hobnobbed with +Oldfield (who now began to take the liveliest interest in the play), +and suggested several alterations in the text. Once Nance ventured to +criticise a speech of Portius; the amiable Addison, unlike the fashion +of some other amiable authors, heard her objections with approval, +and soon Mr. Pope was again called into consultation. There was more +hobnobbing, a change of diction, and the rehearsals continued. Then, +to cap the climax of poetic condescension, little Alexander honoured +"Cato" with a flowing prologue wherein he set forth, archaically +enough, that + + "To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, + To raise the genius, and to mend the heart, + To make mankind in conscious virtue bold, + Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold: + For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage, + Commanding tears to stream through every age; + Tyrants no more their savage nature kept, + And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept." + +At last came the eventful evening of April 13, when "Cato" saw the +light. The theatre was packed, just as Steele promised that it should +be, yet the audience would have been large had Dick never existed. +There were no press agents to "boom" matters, but as it became +known that the Whigs stood sponsors for the tragedy there was a +corresponding desire to be in either at its triumph or its death. The +result has passed into history. The characters were, for the most +part, finely acted, and the play was admired for its lofty sentiments +and elegance of expression, while the Tories, _mirabile dictu_, vied +with their enemies in enthusiastic tokens of approval. The Whigs went +to the theatre expecting to appropriate all of Mr. Addison's illusions +to the sacred cause of liberty, and what must have been their horror +on finding that the Tories, refusing to be discomfited by any of those +illusions, applauded as violently as did the friends of Hanover? + +Pope has left us a description of this first night, in a letter to Sir +William Trumbull. "Cato," he writes, "was not so much the wonder of +Rome in his days, as he is of Britain in ours; and though all the +foolish industry possible has been used to make it thought a party +play, yet what the author once said of another may the most properly +in the world be applied to him on this occasion: + + "'Envy itself is dumb, in wonder lost, + And factions strive who shall applaud him most.'[A] + +[Footnote A: From Addison's poem of "The Campaign," wherein the author +sings of the greatness of Marlborough.] + +"The numerous and violent claps of the Whig party on the one side of +the theatre, were echoed by the Tories on the other; while the +author sweated behind the scenes with concern to find their applause +proceeding more from the hand than the head. This was the case too of +the prologue writer, who was clapped into a staunch Whig at almost +every two lines. I believe you have heard that after all the applause +of the opposite faction, my lord Bolingbroke sent for Booth, who +played Cato, into the box between one of the acts, and presented +him with fifty guineas, in acknowledgement (as he expressed it) +for defending the cause of liberty so well against a Perpetual +Dictator.[A] The Whigs are unwilling to be distanced this way, and +therefore design a present to the same Cato very speedily; in the +meantime they are getting ready as good a sentence as the former on +their side: so betwixt them it is probable that Cato (as Dr. Garth +expressed it) may have something to live upon after he dies." + +[Footnote A: It is suggested by Macaulay that Lord Bolingbroke +hinted at "the attempt which Marlborough had made to convert the +Captain-Generalship into a patent office, to be held by himself +for life." The anecdote of Pope gives us an amusing example of the +stealing of Whig thunder by the clever Tories.] + +So important a role did politics play in this first performance of +"Cato" that to many in the house the merits of the actors must have +passed unrecognised. And yet those merits were striking. Who could +have made a lovlier Marcia than did Nance; and how thoroughly she +must have justified the passion of that most virtuous of princes, the +sententious Juba. The character was not worthy of her genius, but +that did not prevent this true artist from giving to it all manner of +dignity and beauty. Who could help pitying her lover when Marcia first +repelled his amorous advances: + + "I should be griev'd, young Prince, to think my presence + Unbent your thoughts, and slacken'd 'em to arms, + While, warm with slaughter, our victorious foe + Threatens aloud, and calls you to the field." + +And when Marcia, having sent away the youth, explained: + + "His air, his voice, his looks, and honest soul + Speak all so movingly in his behalf, + I dare not trust myself to hear him talk," + +the apology came with such delicious grace and plaintiveness that the +house forgot her coldness in sorrow for her woes. + +And Barton Booth? His superb acting of Cato raised him to such an airy +pinnacle of fame that he soon became one of the managers of Drury +Lane. The other players were evidently all more or less effective, +barring Cibber, whose Syphax (the Numidian warrior who seeks the +downfall of Cato), must have made the judicious grieve. Indeed we can +easily believe that he used so many grotesque motions and spoke his +lines with such a cracked voice as to win only ridicule and "a loud +laugh of contempt." + +Lord Bolingbroke's gift of fifty guineas had a disturbing effect not +only on the Whigs but on Manager Dogget as well. That worthy feared +the success of "Cato" would cause Booth to claim a share in the +direction of Drury Lane, as he did, of course, in a very short time. +In the hopes of shutting off all pretensions to this honour by a +paltry expedient Dogget thought that Cibber, Wilks and himself, as +joint managers, could relieve themselves of every obligation by +duplicating the generosity of the Tory statesman. + +"He insinuated to us (for he was a staunch Whig)" relates Colley, +"that this present of fifty guineas was a sort of Tory triumph which +they had no pretence to; and that for his part he could not bear that +so redoubted a champion for liberty as Cato should be bought off to +the cause of a contrary party. He therefore, in the seeming zeal of +his heart, proposed that the managers themselves should make the +same present to Booth which had been made him from the boxes the day +before. This, he said, would recommend the equality and liberal spirit +of our management to the town, and might be a means to secure Booth +more firmly in our interest, it never having been known that the skill +of the best actor had received so round a reward or gratuity in one +day before. + +"Wilks, who wanted nothing but abilities to be reduc'd to tell him +that it was my opinion that Booth would never be made easy by +anything we could do for him, 'till he had a share in the profits +and management; and that, as he did not want friends to assist him, +whatever his merit might be before, every one would think since his +acting of Cato, he had now enough to back his pretentions to it." + +In the end Cibber's objections were overruled, "and the same night +Booth had the fifty guineas, which he receiv'd with a thankfulness +that made Wilks and Dogget perfectly easy, insomuch that they seem'd +for some time to triumph in their conduct, and often endeavour'd to +laugh my jealousy out of countenance. But in the following winter the +game happened to take a different turn; and then, if it had been a +laughing matter," says Colley, "I had as strong an occasion to smile +at their former security."[A] + +[Footnote A: After Booth was admitted into the management Dogget +retired in disgust from Drury Lane, and brought suit against his +former associates. He was decreed the sum of L600 for his share in the +patent, with allowances for interest. "I desir'd," wrote Cibber, "we +might all enter into an immediate treaty with Booth, upon the terms of +his admission. Dogget still sullenly reply'd, that he had no occasion +to enter into any treaty. Wilks then, to soften him, propos'd that, if +I liked it, Dogget might undertake it himself. I agreed. No! he would +not be concern'd in it. I then offer'd the same trust to Wilks, +if Dogget approv'd of it. Wilks said he was not good at making of +bargains, but if I was willing, he would rather leave it to me. Dogget +at this rose up and said, we might both do as we pleas'd, but that +nothing but the law should make him part with his property--and so +went out of the room."] + +"So much for one result of 'Cato's' first performance. The play had a +run of thirty-five nights and as cunning as Dogget, was so charm'd +with the proposal that he long'd that moment to make Booth the present +with his own hands; and though he knew he had no right to do it +without my consent, had no patience to ask it; upon which I turned to +Dogget with a cold smile [what a freezing, polar expression Cibber +could put on when he desired] and told him, that if Booth could be +purchas'd at so cheap a rate, it would be one of the best proofs of +his economy we had ever been beholden to: I therefore desired we might +have a little patience; that our doing it too hastily might be only +making sure of an occasion to throw the fifty guineas away; for if we +should be obliged to do better for him, we could never expect that +Booth would think himself bound in honour to refund them." + +From this little conversation we see that art is not always the one +beacon light of the player or the manager. Cibber argued with his +natural shrewdness, but Wilks would not be convinced, and began, "with +his usual freedom of speech," to treat the suggestion "as a pitiful +evasion of their intended generosity." + +"But Dogget, who was not so wide of my meaning, clapping his hand upon +mine, said, with an air of security, O! don't trouble yourself! there +must be two words to that bargain; let me alone to manage that matter. +Wilks, upon this dark discourse, grew uneasy, as if there were some +secret between us that he was to be left out of. Therefore, to avoid +the shock of his intemperance, I was the town crowded to the theatre. +Even the good Queen, who must have been more or less bored at the fuss +bestowed upon it, actually suggested that Mr. Addison should dedicate +the tragedy to her Royal self. To inscribe a work to a sovereign means +little or nothing in these days of republicanism, real or assumed, +but Anne's request came as a great compliment It was a compliment, +however, which had to be dispensed with, for Addison had already +proposed to dedicate 'Cato' to the Duchess of Marlborough, and he +harboured no wish to mortify the aggressive Sarah (now out of favour +with the Queen) by acting upon the hint of her one-time friend and +mistress. So the author diplomatically ignored both horns of the +dilemma, or, in other words, determined to consecrate his tragedy +neither to Queen nor Duchess." + +When June was well nigh ended the Drury Lane players transplanted +"Cato" to the scholarly environment of Oxford, where, as friend Cibber +tells us, "a great deal of that false, flashy wit and forc'd humour," +which had been the delight of London, was rated at "its bare +intrinsick value." The play was admirably suited to the temper of a +university audience, and its success proved so great, its sentiment so +uplifted, that Dr. Sandridge, Dean of Carlisle, wrote to Barton Booth +expressing his wish that "all discourses from the pulpit were as +instructive and edifying, as pathetic and affecting," as those +provided by Mr. Addison. + +The "Apology" gives us an interesting account of the favour accorded +to "Cato," above all other modern plays, by the dwellers in thoughtful +Oxford. + +"The only distinguished merit allow'd to any modern writer was to the +author of 'Cato,' which play being the flower of a plant raised in +that learned garden (for there Mr. Addison had his education), what +favour may we not suppose was due to him from an audience of brethren, +who from that local relation to him might naturally have a warmer +pleasure in their benevolence to his fame? But not to give more weight +to this imaginary circumstance than it may bear, the fact was, that on +our first day of acting it, our house was in a manner invested, and +entrance demanded by twelve a clock at noon, and before one it was not +wide enough for many who came too late for places. The same crowds +continued for three days together (an uncommon curiosity in that +place) and the death of Cato triumphed over the injuries of Caesar +everywhere. To conclude, our reception at Oxford, whatever our merit +might be, exceeded our expectation." + +The ladies and gentlemen of Drury Lane posted away from Oxford in a +blaze of glory. They had actually behaved themselves, these despised +mummers, and their contribution towards the repairing of a church was +almost sufficient to bring them within the pale of holiness. "At our +taking leave," writes Colley, jubilantly, "we had the thanks of the +vice-Chancellor for the decency and order observ'd by our whole +society, an honour which had not always been paid upon the same +occasions; for at the act in King William's time I remember some +pranks of a different nature had been complain'd of. Our receipts had +not only enabled us (as I have observ'd) to double the pay of every +actor, but to afford out of them towards the repair of St. Mary's +Church the contribution of fifty pounds. Besides which, each of the +three managers had to his respective share, clear of all charges, one +hundred and fifty more for his one and twenty days' labour, which +being added to his thirteen hundred and fifty shared in the winter +preceding, amounted in the whole to fifteen hundred, the greatest sum +ever known to have been shared in one year to that time. And to the +honour of our auditors here and elsewhere be it spoken, all this was +rais'd without the aid of those barbarous entertainments with which, +some few years after (upon the re-establishment of two contending +companies) we were forc'd to disgrace the stage to support it" + +The success of "Cato" proved as brilliant in a literary as in a +dramatic sense. The play was translated into several languages, not +forgetting the Latin, and even Voltaire was pleased, in after years, +to come down from his critical throne and honour Mr. Addison's verses +with his praise.[A] "The first English writer," he said, "who composed +a regular tragedy and infused a spirit of elegance through every part +of it was the illustrious Mr. Addison." Poor Shakespeare! + +[Footnote A: One sees in Voltaire (who observed that "Hamlet" "appears +the work of a drunken savage") the old-fashioned tendency to belittle +Shakespeare. This tendency has one of its most amusing reflections in +a criticism by Hume, who said of the great poet that "a reasonable +propriety of thought he cannot for any time uphold."] + +Smile as we may over that frigid elegance, it seemed none the less +impressive in the days of auld lang syne, and even yet we hear echoes +of the play in a round of familiar quotations. + + "The woman who deliberates is lost;" + +And + + "'Tis not in mortals to command success, + But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it;" + +And + + "Curse on his virtues, they've undone his country." + +still fall lightly on our ear. But the tragedy is forgotten, and why +seek to resurrect those once-beloved characters? Cato, Marcia, Juba, +and the rest--figures of classic marble rather than of flesh and +blood--have all gone to that bourne whence no stage travellers return. +They lie buried 'mid all the pomp of mouldering books, and there let +them peacefully decay. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +IN TRAGIC PATHS + + +The average comedian will whisper, if you are fortunate enough to get +him in confidential mood, that he was really designed by nature to +tread the stately walks of tragedy; that had not cruel fate intervened +he would now be enthralling the town with his Hamlet, Macbeth, or +Othello, and that even yet he has not lost all hope of adorning the +kingdom of Melpomene. But he is not to be believed, in at least +ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, and while we listen politely to +his story of blasted ambition our hearts are exceeding thankful that +the chance he looked for never came. + +Nance Oldfield brilliantly reversed this order of things. Although she +shone in comedy with the brighter light, she could play serious roles +with majesty and power, and feel, or pretend to feel, a trifle bored +in so doing. "I hate to have a page dragging my train about," she used +to cry, with a pout of the pretty mouth; "why don't they give Porter +those parts? She can put on a better tragedy face than I can." Yet +whatever might be the undoubted capabilities of Porter for assuming +the tragic mask, audience and manager sometimes insisted that Nance +should banish all the sunlight and becloud her features with the +sorrows of a high-strung heroine. + +One of these heroines was Andromache, the title personage of "The +Distressed Mother," an adaptation by Ambrose Philips of Racine's +"Andromaque." This play seems heavy enough if we bother to read it +now, but it had a thousand charms for theatre-goers in the days when +Mr. Philips frequented Button's coffee-house and there hung up a cane +which he threatened to use upon the body of the great Mr. Pope.[A] +Addison, whom tradition credits with writing the entertaining +epilogue, took all manner of interest in the tragedy, and the +_Spectator_ treated it to an advance notice which we degenerates might +term an unblushing "boom." + +[Footnote A: Pope had ventured to sneer at Philips' "Pastorals."] + +"The players, who know I am very much their friend," says the +_Spectator_[A] "take all opportunities to express a gratitude to me +for being so. They could not have a better occasion of obliging me, +than one which they lately took hold of. They desired my friend Will +Honeycomb to bring me the reading of a new tragedy; it is called 'The +Distressed Mother.' I must confess, though some days are passed since +I enjoyed that entertainment, the passions of the several characters +dwell strongly upon my imagination; and I congratulate the age, that +they are at last to see truth and human life represented in the +incidents which concern heroes and heroines. The style of the play +is such as becomes those of the first education, and the sentiments +worthy those of the highest figure. It was a most exquisite pleasure +to me, to observe real tears drop from the eyes of those who had long +made it their profession to dissemble affliction; and the player, who +read, frequently threw down the book, until he had given vent to +the humanity which rose in him at some irresistible touches of the +imagined sorrow." + +[Footnote A: _Spectator_, No. 290, February 1, 1711-12. This essay has +been credited to Steele.] + +This picture of woe would hardly suit the theories of those +hard-hearted players who believe that the true artist is never +"carried away," or affected by the pathos of his part. Surely, the +scene is ridiculous rather than imposing, and one is tempted to +suggest, albeit with bated breath, that the _Spectator_ was indulging +in a bit of good-natured exaggeration. Exaggeration did we say? The +modern newspaper writer, who is always glad, when off duty, to call +things by their plain names, would brand the notice of the "Distressed +Mother" as a bare-faced puff. And who could quarrel with his +scepticism? Actors are not in the habit of weeping over the reading of +a play; they have little time for such briny luxury. + +Yet in this very number of the _Spectator_ we have George Powell, who +was cast for Orestes in Mr. Philips' tragedy, writing that the grief +which he is required to portray will seem almost real enough to choke +his utterance. Here is what the hypocrite says: + +"Mr. SPECTATOR,--I am appointed to act a part in the new tragedy +called 'The Distressed Mother.' It is the celebrated grief of Orestes +which I am to personate; but I shall not act it as I ought, for I +shall feel it too intimately to be able to utter it. I was last night +repeating a paragraph to myself, which I took to be an expression +of rage, and in the middle of the sentence there was a stroke of +self-pity which quite unmanned me. Be pleased, Sir, to print this +letter, that when I am oppressed in this manner at such an interval, a +certain part of the audience may not think I am out; and I hope with +this allowance, to do it with satisfaction.--I am, Sir, your most +humble servant, GEORGE POWELL." + +Poor dashing, dissipated, brandy-bibbing George! Perhaps you had as +keen an eye to the value of advertising as have certain players who +never heard your name.[A] + +[Footnote A: The original cast of the "Distressed Mother" included +Booth (Pyrrhus), Powell (Orestes), Mills (Pylades), Mrs. Oldfield +(Andromache), and Mrs. Porter (Hermione).] + +The production of the "Distressed Mother" (March, 1712), was +accompanied by an exciting popular demonstration which must for the +nonce have made Powell quite forget those lines which gave him such +exquisite sorrow. It all came from the jealousy of Mrs. Rogers, she of +more virtue on the stage than off, and who always cherished, with the +assistance of kind friends, a very sincere belief that her powers far +exceeded those of Oldfield.[A] + +[Footnote A: The rivalry between Rogers and Oldfield once reached such +a pass that Wilks sought to end it, and stop the complaints of the +former's admirers, by a severe expedient. "Mr. Wilks," says Victor, +"soon reduced this clamor to demonstration, by an experiment of Mrs. +Oldfield and Mrs. Rogers playing the same part, that of Lady Lurewell +in the 'Trip to the Jubilee;' but though obstinacy seldom meets +conviction, yet from this equitable trial the tumults in the house +were soon quelled (by public authority) greatly to the honour of Mr. +Wilks. I am, from my own knowledge thoroughly convinced that Mr. +Wilks had no other regard for Mrs. Oldfield but what arose from the +excellency of her performances. Mrs. Roger's conduct might be censured +by some for the earnestness of her passion towards Mr. Wilks, but +in the polite world the fair sex has always been privileged from +scandal."] + +So when Nance was cast for the distraught Andromache there was +trouble. Rogers demanded the part, and on being refused set about to +make things as unpleasant as possible for her detested rival. Friends +of the disappointed actress packed Drury Lane when the "Distressed +Mother" was performed, and the appearance of Oldfield was made the +signal for a riot. Royal messengers and guards were sent to put an end +to the disorder, but the play had to be stopped for that night. + +Colley, who had ever an eye to the pounds, shillings and pence, was +disgusted at what he chose to call an exhibition of low malevolence. +"We have been forced," he says, "to dismiss an audience of a hundred +and fifty pounds, from a disturbance spirited up by obscure people, +who never gave any better reason for it, than that it was their fancy +to support the idle complaint of one rival actress against another, in +their several pretentious to the chief part in a new tragedy. But as +this tumult seem'd only to be the Wantonness of _English_ Liberty, I +shall not presume to lay any further censure upon it." + +Finally the combined charms of Oldfield and the "Distressed Mother" +triumphed, and young beaux who had helped to swell the riot were +glad to come back meekly to Drury Lane and extol the attractions of +Andromache. In the play itself Nance must have been all that the +troublous part suggested, but it was when she tripped on gaily and +gave the humorous epilogue that the house found her most delightful. +She, who could reign so imperially in tragedy, had glided back to her +better-loved kingdom of comedy, and what cared her captivated hearers +if this self-same epilogue made an inharmonious ending to a serious +play. It was quite enough that Andromache, with all her sufferings +dispelled, should say melodiously: + + "I hope you'll own, that with becoming art, + I've play'd my game, and topp'd the widow's part. + My spouse, poor man, could not live out the play, + But dy'd commodiously on wedding-day,[A] + While I his relict, made at one bold fling, + Myself a princess, and young Sty a King. + You, ladies, who protract a lover's pain, + And hear your servants sigh whole years in vain; + Which of you all would not on marriage venture, + Might she so soon upon her jointure enter?" + +[Footnote A: This is a coy reference to Pyrrhus, who was murdered +while his marriage to Hector's widow was being celebrated with royal +pomp. As he fell, it will be remembered, the King placed his crown +upon the head of Andromache.] + +An epilogue leading off with these lines was hardly an appropriate +ending to a tragedy, yet are we fastidious enough in these days to +sneer at the anomaly? We have banished prologue and afterpiece as +something old-fashioned and inartistic, but never turn one solitary +eyelash when Hamlet follows up his death by rushing before the curtain +and grinning his thanks. Desdemonas who come forward, after the +smothering scene, to receive flowers, and Romeos and Juliets who rise +from the tomb that they may bow and smirk before an audience--while +we have such as these among us, let us not cast stones at the early +playgoer. + +Addison has left, in the _Spectator_, a delightful story of dear old +Sir Roger de Coverley's experience with the "Distressed Mother." Sir +Roger, it appears, confessed that he had not seen a play for twenty +years, and was very anxious to know "who this distressed mother was; +and upon hearing that she was Hector's widow, he told me that her +husband was a brave man, and that when he was a schoolboy he had read +his life at the end of the dictionary."[A] So the old gentleman, +accompanied by the _Spectator_, Captain Sentry, and a retinue of +servants, set out in state for Drury Lane, and on arriving there went +into the pit. + +[Footnote A: _Spectator_, No. 335.] + +"As soon as the house was full, and the candles lighted, my old +friend stood up, and looked about him with that pleasure which a mind +seasoned with humanity naturally feels in itself, at the sight of a +multitude of people who seem pleased with one another, and partake of +the same common entertainment. I could not but fancy to myself, as the +old man stood up in the middle of the pit, that he made a very proper +centre to a tragic audience. Upon the entering of Pyrrhus, the knight +told me, that he did not believe the king of France himself had a +better strut. I was indeed very attentive to my old friend's remarks, +because I looked upon them as a piece of natural criticism, and was +well pleased to hear him, at the conclusion of almost every scene, +telling me that he could not imagine how the play would end. One while +he appeared much concerned for Andromache; and a little while after +for Hermione; and was extremely puzzled to think what would become of +Pyrrhus. + +"When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obstinate refusal to her lovers +importunities, he whispered me in the ear, that he was sure she +would never have him; to which he added, with a more than ordinary +vehemence, 'You can't imagine, sir, what it is to have to do with a +widow.' Upon Pyrrhus's threatening afterwards to leave her, the knight +shook his head, and muttered to himself, 'Ay, do if you can.' This +part dwelt so much upon my friend's imagination, that at the close of +the third act, as I was thinking of something else, he whispered me +in my ear, 'These widows, sir, are the most perverse creatures in +the world. But pray,' says he, 'you that are a critic, is the play +according to your dramatic rules, as you call them? Should your people +in tragedy always talk to be understood? Why, there is not a single +sentence in this play that I do not know the meaning of.' + +"The fourth act very luckily began before I had time to give the old +gentleman an answer. 'Well,' says the knight, sitting down with great +satisfaction, 'I suppose we are now to see Hector's ghost,' He then +renewed his attention, and, from time to time, fell a praising the +widow. He made, indeed, a little mistake as to one of her pages, whom +at his first entering he took for Astyanax; but quickly set himself +right in that particular, though, at the same time he owned he should +have been very glad to have seen the little boy, who, says he, must +needs be a very fine child by the account that is given of him. Upon +Hermione's going off with a menace to Pyrrhus, the audience gave a +loud clap, to which Sir Roger added, 'On my word, a notable young +baggage!'" + +We can imagine Sir Roger going, a year later, to see Mrs. Oldfield +carry all before her as Jane Shore in Nicholas Rowe's play of that +name. The author had once been an ardent admirer of the glacierlike +but lovely Bracegirdle, at whose haughty shrine he long worshipped in +the hopes that the ice of her reserve might some day melt; and the +wits of the coffee-house were wont to say, not without a grain of +truth, that when the poet wrote dramas to fit Bracegirdle as the +heroine, the lovers therein always pleaded his own passion[A]. Now +that the charmer had left the stage, Rowe was forced to entrust the +title character of Jane Shore to Nance, who vowed, no doubt, she was +thoroughly bored at having to walk once again through a vale of tears. +But she made another triumph (the author himself coached her in the +part), and helped to give the production all manner of success. + +[Footnote A: As Cibber says, Mrs. Bracegirdle "inspired the best +authors to write for her, and two of them [Rowe and Congreve] when +they gave her a lover in a play, seem'd palpably to plead their +own passions, and make their private court to her in fictitious +characters."] + +It is a curious fact that the writing of the tragedy was indirectly +due to political disappointment. Rowe had set himself assiduously to +the study of Spanish with the idea of securing from Lord Halifax a +diplomatic position, and his reward for this energy was so intangible +that he soon gave up hopes of foreign travel and turned his attention +to the tribulations of Jane. In other words, the noble Halifax merely +expressed his satisfaction that Mr. Rowe could now read "Don Quixote" +in the original. + +Thus Nance played on, sometimes in comedy, and again in tragedy, when, +despite her customary objections, the pages had to drag her train +about. It was a train that swept all before it. + +The speaking of trains and pages suggests the fact that in old times +the heroes and heroines of tragedy always wore, either in peculiarity +of dress or pomp of surroundings, the badge of greatness. Nowadays a +few bars of romantic music, to usher these characters on the stage, +will suffice. But things were different then; our ancestors insisted +that the aforesaid _dramatis personnae_ should be labelled, frilled +and furbelowed. + +Addison has an interesting essay on the subject.[A] + +[Footnote A: _Spectator_, No. 42.] + +"But among all our tragic artifices," he says, "I am the most offended +at those which are made use of to inspire us with magnificent ideas of +the persons that speak. The ordinary method of making an hero, is to +clap a huge plume of feathers upon his head which rises so very high, +that there is often a greater length from his chin to the top of his +head than to the sole of his foot. One would believe that we thought +a great man and a tall man the same thing. This very much embarrasses +the actor, who is forced to hold his neck extremely stiff and steady +all the while he speaks; and notwithstanding any anxieties which he +pretends for his mistress, his country, or his friends, one may see by +his action, that his greatest care and concern is to keep the plume of +feathers from falling off his head. For my own part, when I see a man +uttering his complaints under such a mountain of feathers, I am apt +to look upon him rather as an unfortunate lunatic, than a distressed +hero. + +"As these superfluous ornaments upon the head make a great man, +a princess generally receives her grandeur from those additional +encumbrances that fall into her tail; I mean the broad sweeping train +that follows her in all her motions, and finds constant employment for +a boy who stands behind her to open and spread it to advantage. I do +not know how others are affected at this sight, but I must confess my +eyes are wholly taken up with the page's part; and, as for the queen, +I am not so attentive to any thing she speaks, as to the right +adjusting of her train, lest it should chance to trip up her heels, or +incommode her, as she walks to and fro upon the stage. It is, in my +opinion, a very odd spectacle to see a queen venting her passion in +a disordered motion, and a little boy taking care all the while that +they do not ruffle the tail of her gown. The parts that the two +persons act on the stage at the same time are very different. The +princess is afraid lest she should incur the displeasure of the king +her father, or lose the hero, her lover, whilst her attendant is only +concerned lest she should entangle her feet in her petticoat." + +In a succeeding paragraph the reader finds that a cherished +nineteenth-century custom--the representing of a vast army by the +employment of half-a-dozen ill-fed, unpainted supers--has at least the +sanction of age: "Another mechanical method of making great men, and +adding dignity to kings and queens, is to accompany them with halberts +and battle-axes. Two or three shifters of scenes, with the two +candle-snuffers, make up a complete body of guards upon the English +stage; and by the addition of a few porters dressed in red coats, can +represent above a dozen legions. I have sometimes seen a couple of +armies drawn up together upon the stage, when the poet has been +disposed to do honour to his generals. It is impossible for the +reader's imagination to multiply twenty men into such prodigious +multitudes, or to fancy that two or three hundred thousand soldiers +are fighting in a room of forty or fifty yards in compass. Incidents +of such a nature should be told, not represented." + +Addison remarks that "the tailor and painter often contribute to the +success of a tragedy more than the poet," a trite saying which holds +good now, and he ends his essay with the belief that "a good poet +will give the reader a more lively idea of an army or a battle in a +description, than if he actually saw them drawn up in squadrons and +battalions, or engaged in the confusion of a fight. Our minds should +be open to great conceptions, and inflamed with glorious sentiments +by what the actor speaks, more than by what he appears. Can all the +trappings or equipage of a king or hero give Brutus half the pomp and +majesty which he receives from a few lines in Shakespeare?" Which is +all very true, yet "the tailor and painter" will continue popular, no +doubt, until the crack of doom. + +The month of December 1714 saw the reopening of the theatre in +Lincoln's Inn Fields, under letters patent originally granted by +Charles II. to Christopher Rich, and restored by his broken-English +Majesty George I. The renewal created a dangerous rival to Drury Lane, +but it is not probable that the king worried over having planted such +a thorn in the sides of Messrs. Steele, Booth, Wilks, and Cibber[A]. +He remembered, he told Mr. Craggs, "when he had been in England +before, in King Charles his time, there had been two theatres in +London; and as the patent seemed to be a lawful grant, he saw no +reason why two playhouses might not be continued." + +[Footnote A: On the death of Queen Anne the old licence or patent of +Drury Lane lapsed, and when the new one was issued Steele was named +therein as a partner.] Several useful players left Drury Lane to go +over into Lincoln's Inn Fields,[A] chief among them being Mrs. Rogers, +who felt greatly relieved in transferring her affectations of virtue +to a house where she would no longer be overshadowed by the genius +of Oldfield. As for Nance, she was faithful to the old theatre, +and continued to be the fairest though perhaps the frailest of its +pillars, notwithstanding the personal charms of Mrs. Horton. The +latter was a strolling player recently admitted to the sacred +precincts of Drury. She had been in the habit of "ranting tragedy in +barns and country towns, and playing Cupid in a booth, at suburban +fairs. The attention of managers was directed towards her; and Booth, +after seeing her act in Southwark, engaged her for Drury Lane, where +her presence was more agreeable to the public than particularly +pleasant to dear Mrs. Oldfield."[B] + +[Footnote A: 'Tis true, they none of them had more than a negative +merit, in being only able to do us more harm by their leaving us +without notice, than they could do us good by remaining with us: For +though the best of them could not support a play, the worst of them by +their absence could maim it; as the loss of the least pin in a watch +may obstruct its motion.--CIBBER.] + +[Footnote B: Dr. Doran's "Annals of the Stage."] + +So wagged the mimic world with Nance as its most attractive figure. +Sometimes she laughed her way through a play; and again she committed +suicide for the edification of the audience, as when she appeared in +"Busiris." This was a windy tragedy by Dr. Young (he of the "Night +Thoughts"), wherein Wilks, as Memnon, also had to kill himself. +The performance was, naturally enough, far from cheerful, and no +particular inspiration could have been obtained from the presence of +Busiris himself, that semi-savage Egyptian king to whom Ovid referred: + + "'Tis said that Egypt for nine years was dry; + Nor Nile did floods, nor heaven did rain supply. + A foreigner at length informed the King + That slaughtered guests would kindly moisture bring. + The King replied, 'On thee the lot shall fall; + Be thou, my guest, the sacrifice for all.'" + +Certainly a most ungenial host. + +There were times when Oldfield could even arouse enthusiasm amid the +dullest and most unappealing surroundings. This she did, for instance, +in the stupid "Sophonisba" of James Thomson, who could write +delightful poetry about nature without being able to carry any of that +nature into the art of play-making. It was in this artificial tragedy +that the famous line occurred: "Oh Sophonisba! Sophonisba, o!" which +was afterwards parodied by "Oh! Jemmy Thomson! Jemmy Thomson, oh!" +and it was in the same ill-fated compilation that Cibber had the +distinction of being hissed off the stage. The latter, unlike +Oldfield, had a sneaking fondness for tragedy, and when "Sophonisba" +was first read in the green room he appropriated to his own use the +dignified character of Scipio. His egotism and foolishness had their +full reward. For two nights successively, as Davies tells us, "Cibber +was as much exploded as any bad actor could be. Williams, by desire of +Wilks, made himself master of the part; but he, marching slowly, in +great military distinction, from the upper part of the stage, and +wearing the same dress as Cibber, was mistaken for him, and met +with repeated hisses, joined to the music of cat-calls [notice, ye +theatre-goers of 1898, that the cat-call is not the invention of the +modern gallery god]; but, as soon as the audience were undeceived, +they converted their groans and hisses to loud and long continued +applause." Three years later, in 1733, Cibber retired from the stage. + +With Mrs. Oldfield the picture was far different. She could not make +of Thomson's tragedy a success, yet she played Sophonisba (one of the +last parts in which she was ever seen) with a grandeur of effect that +well earned the undying gratitude of the author.[A] In after years her +old admirers were wont to thrill with pleasure as they recalled the +passionate intensity she gave to that much-quoted line, + + "Not one base word of Carthage, for thy soul," + +as she stood glaring at the astonished Massinissa. + +[Footnote A: Mrs. Oldfield, in the character of Sophonisba, has +excelled what, even in the fondness of an author, I could either wish +or imagine. The grace, dignity, and happy variety of her action have +been universally applauded, and are truly admirable.--Thomson.] + +Among those who saw Sophonisba was Chetwood, whose "General History of +the Stage" gives us many a charming glimpse of dead and gone actors. +Dead and gone? Nay, rather let it be said that they still live in the +ever fresh and graphic pages of contemporary critics, and thus refute +the gentle pessimism of Mr. Henley when he asks so gracefully: + + "Where are the passions they essayed, + And where the tears they made to flow? + Where the wild humours they portrayed + For laughing worlds to see and know? + Othello's wrath and Juliet's woe? + Sir Peter's whims and Timon's gall? + And Millamant and Romeo? + Into the night go one and all." + +"I was too young," says Chetwood, "to view her first dawn on the +stage, but yet had the infinite satisfaction of her meridian lustre, a +glow of charms not to be beheld but with a trembling eye! which held +her influence till set in night." + +Of Nance's tendency to escape tragic plays the same writer tells us: +"When 'Mithridates' was revived, it was with much difficulty she was +prevail'd upon to take the part; but she perform'd it to the utmost +length of perfection, and, after that, she seem'd much better +reconcil'd to tragedy. What a majestical dignity in Cleopatra! and, +indeed, in every part that required it: Such a finish'd figure on the +stage, was never yet seen. In 'Calista, the Fair Penitent,' she was +inimitable, in the third act, with Horatio, when she tears the letter +with + + "'To atoms, thus! + Thus let me tear the vile detested falsehood, + The wicked lying evidence of shame!' + +"Her excellent clear voice of passion, with manner and action suiting, +us'd to make me shrink with awe, and seem'd to put her monitor Horatio +into a mousehole. I almost gave him up for a troublesome puppy; and +though Mr. Booth play'd the part of Lothario, I could hardly lug him +up to the importance of triumphing over such a finish'd piece of +perfection, that seemed to be too much dignified to lose her virtue." + + * * * * * + +Perhaps the reader may think that this chapter, like several others, +is (as the theatre-goer said of "Hamlet") too "deuced full of +quotation." Yet what can give a better picture of old stage life than +these quaint and often eloquent records of the past? Pray be lenient, +therefore, thou kindly critic, if the most faded books of the +theatrical library are taken down from the dusty shelf, and a few of +the neglected pages are printed once again. As these very books seem +all the better in their dingy bindings, so do the old ideas, the odd +conceits, the stories that charmed dead generations, take on a keener +zest when clothed in the formal language of other days. + +If we want to get that formal language in all its glory, let us bring +from the library a copy of some early eighteenth-century tragedy. +Shall we close our eyes and choose one at random? Well, what have we? +The "Tamerlane" of our friend Nicholas Rowe, in which is set forth the +story of the generous Emperor of Tartary, the "very glass and fashion +of all conquerors." The play is prefaced by a fulsome "Epistle +Dedicatory," addressed to the sacred person of the "Right Honourable +William, Lord Marquis of Harrington," and showing, almost +pathetically, how frequently the literary workers of Queen Anne's +"golden age" were wont to beg the influence of some powerful patron. +The dedication seems absolutely grovelling when viewed from the +present standards, but Mr. Rowe and his friends saw therein nothing +more remarkable than respectful homage to one of the world's great +men. The republic of letters was then an empty name.[A] + +[Footnote A: "Tamerlane" was brought out in 1702, with Betterton in +the title role.] + +The author of "Tamerlane" fears that in thus calling attention to the +play he may appear guilty of "impertinence and interruptions," and, +he adds, "I am sure it is a reason why I ought to beg your Lordship's +pardon, for troubling you with this tragedy; not but that poetry has +always been, and will still be the entertainment of all wise men, that +have any delicacy in their knowledge." Then, after wasting a little +necessary flattery on the noble marquis, he starts off into an +unblushing eulogy of King William III., whose clemency was mirrored, +supposedly, by the hero of the tragedy. "Some people [who do me a very +great honour in it] have fancy'd, that in the person of Tamerlane, I +have alluded to the greatest character of the present age. I don't +know whether I ought not to apprehend a great deal of danger from +avowing a design like that: It may be a task indeed worthy of the +greatest genius, which this or any other time has produc'd; but +therefore I ought not to stand the shock of a parallel lest it should +be seen, to my disadvantage, how far the _Hero has transcended the +poet's thoughts_"--and so on, _ad nauseam_. + +To turn the leaves of the play, after wading through the slime of the +"Epistle," is to find amusing proof of the high-flown and at times +bombastic expression which elicited such admiration from audiences of +the old _regime_. (Do not laugh at it, reader; you tolerate an equal +amount of absurdity in modern melodrama). The very first lines are +charmingly suggestive of the starched and stately past. "Hail to the +sun!" says the Prince of Tanais: + + "Hail to the sun! from whose returning light + The cheerful soldier's arms new lustre take + To deck the pomp of battle." + +Playwrights of Rowe's cult loved to hail the sun. Just why the orb +of day had to be saluted with such frequency no one seemed able to +determine, but the honour was continually bestowed, to the great +edification of the groundlings. When Young wrote "Busiris," he paid +so much attention to old Sol that Fielding burlesqued the learned +doctor's weakness through the medium of "Tom Thumb," and wrote that +"the author of 'Busiris' is extremely anxious to prevent the sun's +blushing at any indecent object; and, therefore, on all such +occasions, he addresses himself to the sun, and desires him to keep +out of the way." + +After the Prince of Tanais's homage to the sun we hear something +fulsome about the virtues of King William, alias Tamerlane: + + "No lust of rule, the common vice of Kings, + No furious zeal, inspir'd by hot-brain'd priests, + Ill hid beneath religion's specious name, + E'er drew his temp'rate courage to the field: + But to redress an injur'd people's wrongs, + To save the weak one from the strong oppressor, + Is all his end of war. And when he draws + The sword to punish, like relenting Heav'n, + He seems unwilling to deface his kind." + +A few lines later and we find one of the characters drawing a parallel +between Tamerlane, otherwise William, and Divinity: + + "Ere the mid-hour of night, from tent to tent, + Unweary'd, thro' the num'rous host he past, + Viewing with careful eyes each several quarters; + Whilst from his looks, as from Divinity, + The soldiers took presage, and cry'd, Lead on, + Great Alha, and our emperor, lead on, + To victory, and everlasting fame." + +How changeth the spirit of each age! Imagine Bronson Howard or +Augustus Thomas writing a play wherein the President of the United +States was brought into such irreverent contact with the Deity.[A] + +[Footnote A: Yet it cannot be easily forgotten that a certain +clergyman, preaching, several years ago, at the funeral of a rich +man's son, compared the poor boy to Christ. And this very ecclesiastic +probably looks upon the stage as a monument of sacrilegiousness.] + +But we need not follow the platitudes of Tamerlane and his companions, +nor weep at the sententious wickedness of Bajazet, that ungrateful +sovereign typifying Louis Quatorze, King of France, Prince of +Gentlemen, and Right Royal Hater of His Protestant Majesty William of +Orange. Heaven rest their souls! and with that pious prayer we may bid +them farewell, as + + "Into the night go one and all." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +NANCE AT HOME + + +"Home?" An actress at home? Does it not seem strange to apply the dear +old English noun, so redolent of peace, and quiet, and privacy, to +the feverish life of a mummer? We go, night after night, to see our +favourite players shining 'mid the fierce glare of the footlights, +watch them approvingly as they pass from role to role, and finally +begin to believe, like the egotists we are, that they have no +existence apart from the one we are pleased to applaud. What fools +some of us must be to think there is never a time when the paint and +powder, the tinsel and eternal artifice of the stage--yea, even our +own condescending admiration--pall on the jaded spirits of the poor +player. + +"How sparklingly is Miss Smith acting Lady Teazle to-night!" we say, +elegantly pressing our hands together in token of august favour. We +are entranced, and it follows, therefore, that the actress must be +entranced likewise. Mayhap Miss Smith does not share the same ecstacy; +perhaps, as she stands behind the screen in Joseph Surface's rooms, +Sir Peter's wife is wishing that the comedy were ended and she were +comfortably ensconced in her cosy little lodgings round the corner. +She pictures that crackling wood fire, and her old terrier basking +in the gentle heat, and the tea-urn hissing near by (or is it a cold +bottle of beer in the portable refrigerator?) and in the background +sweet good Mr. Smith, who does nothing but spend his lady's salary. +In that temple of domesticity there are no thoughts of rouge, or +paint-pots, or of Richard Brinsley Sheridan--it is merely home. Dost +thou always hurry back to so attractive a one, thou patronising +theatre-goer? + +Our Nance had a home to which she was glad enough to hurry back, like +the aforesaid Miss Smith, after the play was over at Drury Lane. There +was no husband there to await her, but a very devoted knight in the +person of Mr. Arthur Maynwaring, who, though he gave not his name nor +the ceremony of bell, book, and candle to the union, played the part +of spouse to the fair charmer. The town looked with good-natured +tolerance on the moral code, or the want thereof, of the frail one, +just as other towns, in later days, have looked with equal benevolence +upon the peccadillos of some petted favourite. The times were not of +the straightlaced order and no one expected from an actress wonders +of chastity or conventionality. Are we ourselves exacting where the +Thespian is concerned? + +[Illustration: ANNE OLDFIELD + +By JONATHAN RICHARDSON] + + Fashion'd alike by Nature and by Art + To please, engage, and interest ev'ry heart. + In public life, by all who saw, approv'd; + In private life, by all who knew her, lov'd. + +"Even her amours," says Chetwood in treating of Mistress Oldfield, +"seemed to lose that glare which appears round the persons of the +failing fair; neither was it ever known that she troubled the repose +of any lady's lawful claim; and was far more constant than millions in +the conjugal noose." Being thus acquitted of predatory designs +upon the peace of English wives, and having the further virtue of +constancy, a host of Londoners, men and women, high and low alike, +gazed with charitable eyes upon Nance's private life. And she, dear +girl, sinned on joyously. + +Mr. Maynwaring, who helped Oldfield to break the spirit of one +commandment, was a brilliant figure in the reign of Queen Anne, +albeit, like other brilliant figures of that period, he has passed +into the darkness of oblivion. A clever dabbler in literature, an +honest politician--a politician with scruples was as rare in those +days as he is now--and a man of honour who could drink as much as his +friends, the volatile Arthur was, perhaps, best known as the most +attractive talker of the famous Kit-Cat Club. The Kit-Cat Club! What +a wealth of anecdote doth its name conjure up to the student of the +past! 'Twas in this famous organisation that noblemen and wits met on +common ground, drank many a toast to the House of Hanover or to some +reigning belle of London town, and exercised a patronising censorship +over the world of letters. They were "the patriots that saved Briton," +says Horace Walpole, in referring to their anti-Jacobitism, and yet +the most of them are forgotten. + +If tradition is to be believed (and what siren is more comfortable to +hearken unto than tradition?) these self-same patriots took their name +of "Kit-Cats" from prosaic mutton pies. 'Twould be horrible to think +on this gastronomic derivation of the title were we not to remember, +quite fortunately, that geese saved classic Rome. Why, therefore, +should not the preservers of perfidious Albion suggest the aroma of a +lamb pasty? + +It seems that the Club had its first headquarters in Shire Lane, near +Temple Bar, at the establishment of Christopher Cat, a pastrycook +who helped to enliven the inner man by delicious meat pies dubbed +"Kit-Cats." Hence the name of that notable coterie of Whigs which +included Addison and Dick Steele, Congreve and His Grace of +Devonshire.[A] + +[Footnote A: Our modern celebrated clubs are founded upon eating and +drinking, which are points wherein most men agree, and in which the +learned and illiterate, the dull and the airy, the philosopher and the +buffoon, can all of them bear a part. The Kit-Cat itself is said to +have taken its original from a mutton pie. The Beef-Steak and October +clubs are neither of them averse to eating and drinking, if we may +form a judgment of them from their respective titles.--ADDISON in the +_Spectator_.] + +Maynwaring came of good English stock, and in early life showed the +results of his relationship to the aristocratic house of Cholmondeley +by supporting the lost cause of James II. So fervent an admirer was he +of that apology for royalty that he took up the pen, if not the sword, +in his behalf, and steeped the mightier weapon with satirical ink when +he wrote a pamphlet entitled "The King of Hearts." Rumour paid to +the young author an unintentional compliment by insisting that the +brochure came from the great Mr. Dryden, but that genius denied the +soft impeachment while gracefully praising the unknown writer. + +This pursuit of Jacobitism was varied by the study of law--a study +"sometimes relieved with a temporary application to music and +poetry"--and when the disconsolate Arthur had lost his father, and +thereby gained 800 pounds a year, he drowned his sorrows by an almost +exclusive devotion to "society and pleasantry." We are told[A] that on +the ratification of the Peace of Ryswick he went to Paris, where +he was exceedingly well received in consequence of the numerous +introductory letters which had been furnished him from various +quarters. He there contracted an intimacy with Boileau,-- + + "Whose rash envy would allow + No strain that shamed his country's creaking lyre, + That whetstone of the teeth, monotony in wire." + +[Footnote A: "Memoirs of the Celebrated Persons comprising the Kit-Cat +Club."] + +"The French poet invited Maynwaring to his country seat, where he +behaved to him in a very hospitable manner, and frequently conversed +with him respecting the merits of our English poets, of whom, however, +he affected to know but little, and for whom he pretended to care +still less. Monsieur de la Fontaine was also at times one of their +company, and always spoke in very respectful terms of the poetry of +the sister nation. Boileau's pretending to be ignorant of Dryden +'argued himself unknown'; but, perhaps, another reason may be assigned +why the French writers found it convenient to know as little as +possible of their English contemporary, who in many of his admirable +prefaces and dedications has taken some trouble to explain the +frivolity of the French poets, their tiresome _petit maitre-ship_, and +all the finessing and trick with which they endeavour to make amends +to their readers for positive deficiency of genius." + +After playing the _dilettante_ in France, Maynwaring returned home, +and in time became a staunch Whig, a Government official, and, later +on, a Member of Parliament. The cause of the Pretender knew him no +more, and in future this brilliant gentleman would be one of the +greatest friends of that stupid Hanoverian family which waited +drowsily, across the sea, for the death of Anne. + +But what counted all the glamour of public life compared to the +possession of Nance Oldfield and an honoured seat at the festive board +of the Kit-Cat Club? Love and conviviality, youth and wit, carried the +day, and through the influence of these seductive companions handsome +Arthur failed to achieve greatness as a statesman. But when it came +to waging political warfare against sour Swift, or to assisting Dick +Steele with the "Tatler," or--better still--toasting some fair one at +the Club,[A] this _bon viveur_ was in his finest mood. + +[Footnote A: The (Kit-Cat) club originated in the hospitality of Jacob +Tonson, the bookseller, who, once a week, was host at the house in +Shire Lane to a gathering of writers. In an occasional poem on the +Kit-Cat club, attributed to Sir Richard Blackmore, Jacob is read +backwards into Bocaj, and we are told: + + "One Night in Seven at this convenient seat + Indulgent Bocaj did the Muses treat; + Their Drink was gen'rous Wine and Kit-Cat's Pyes their Meat. + Hence did th' Assembly's Title first arise, + And Kit-Cat Wits spring first from Kit-Cat's Pyes." + +About the year 1700 this gathering of wits produced a club in which +the great Whig chiefs were associated with foremost Whig writers, +Tonson being secretary. It was as much literary as political, and its +"toasting glasses," each inscribed with lines to a reigning beauty, +caused Arbuthnot to derive its value from "its pell mell pack of +toasts." + + Of old Cats and young Kits. + +Tonson built a room for the Club at Barn Elms to which each member +gave his portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller, who was himself a member. +The pictures were on a new-sized canvas adopted to the height of the +walls, whence the name "Kit-Cat" came to be applied generally +to three-quarter length portraits.--HENRY MORLEY'S Notes on the +_Spectator_.] + +It is to be supposed that at some time or other the health of Mistress +Oldfield was drunk by the Kit-Cats, whose custom of honouring +womankind in this bibulous way may have given rise to Pope's plaintive +query: + + "Say why are beauties prais'd and honoured most, + The wise man's passion, and the vain man's toast? + Why deck'd with all that land and sea afford, + Why Angels call'd, and angel-like adored?" + +And if the actress was thus deified or spiritualised, who drained his +glass more fervently than did Arthur Maynwaring? For whatever may have +been the faults of this dashing Whig, he had the courage of his sins, +and took up his abode with Anne in the full light of day, as though +a marriage ceremony were a bagatelle not worth the recollecting. The +world was forgiving, to be sure, nor is it probable that either one +of this easily-mated pair suffered any loss of public esteem by the +union. Dukes--nay, even Duchesses--were glad to meet Nance, and +Royalty allowed her to bask in the sunshine of its gracious approval. +"She was to be seen on the terrace at Windsor, walking with the +consorts of dukes, and with countesses, and wives of English barons, +and the whole gay group might be heard calling one another by their +Christian names." + +No wonder that the women of fashion, none of them saints, loved +Oldfield and winked at the elasticity of her moral ethics. The dear +creature was so bright in conversation, so full of _espieglerie_, and, +still more important, she looked so charming in her succession of +handsome toilettes, that she could be ever sure of a cordial welcome. +"Flavia," as Steele calls her, "is ever well-dressed, and always +the genteelest woman you meet, but the make of her mind very much +contributes to the ornament of her body. She has the greatest +simplicity of manners of any of her sex. This makes everything look +native about her, and her clothes are so exactly fitted, that they +appear, as it were, part of her person. Every one that sees her knows +her to be of quality; but her distinction is owing to her manner, +and not to her habit. Her beauty is full of attraction, but not of +allurement. There is such a composure in her looks, and propriety in +her dress, that you would think it impossible she should change the +garb you one day see her in, for anything so becoming until you next +day see her in another. There is no mystery in this, but that however +she is apparelled, she is herself the same: for there is so immediate +a relation between our thoughts and gestures that a woman must think +well to look well." + + * * * * * + +Here, verily, was an actress who could set the town wild by the beauty +and exquisite taste of her costumes, and who was conscientious enough, +nevertheless, to keep the millinery phase of her art modestly in the +background. You, ladies, who depend for theatrical success upon the +elegance of your gowns, and fondly believe that fairness of face and +litheness of figure will atone for a thousand dramatic sins, take +pattern by the industry of Oldfield. It will be a much better pattern +than those over which you are accustomed to worry your pretty heads. +The enterprising dressmakers who go to the play to get inspiration for +new clothes may cease to worship you, but think of the other sort of +inspiration which you will give to lovers of the drama! Then shall +there be no more announcements to the effect that, "Miss Lighthead +will act Lady Macbeth in ten Parisian gowns made by Worth," or that +when she treats us to the death of Marguerite Gautier (the aforesaid +Mdlle. Gautier dying, as everybody knows, in actual poverty) "Miss +Lighthead will wear diamonds representing one hundred thousand +dollars." + +There is not much to say about the domesticity of Nance and Arthur +Maynwaring. How could there be? The lady kept house for her lord and +master with grace and modesty (if it seems not paradoxical to mention +modesty in this alliance), and it is safe to believe that more than +one member of the Kit-Cat Club often tasted a bit of beef and pudding, +and sipped a glass of port, at the table of the happy pair. Congreve, +the particular friend and _protege_ of the host, must have dined more +than once with brilliant Nance, regaling his plump being with the joy +of food and drink, and wondering, perhaps, how any one could prefer +the hostess to his particular _chere-amie_, Anne Bracegirdle. And +Oldfield, of what did she think as she gazed into the rounded face of +Mr. Congreve, or listened to the merry wit of her devoted liege? Did +the ghost of poor, dead Farquhar ever arise before her, the reminder +of a day when love was younger and passion stronger? Let us ask no +impertinent questions. + +What with acting, and supping, and an easy conscience, Mistress +Oldfield gaily trod the primrose path of dalliance, and Cupid hovered +near, albeit there was no law to chain him to the scene. But one day +he took to his wings and flew away, after witnessing the untimely +death (November 1712) of Mr. Maynwaring. The latter made his exit with +the assistance of three physicians, and Nance was near to smooth the +departure.[A] Then came the funeral, and after that Mrs. Mayn--Mrs. +Oldfield dried her lovely eyes (did she not have enough weeping to do +when she played in tragedy?), and began once more to think upon the +joys of existence. + +[Footnote A: He died at St. Albans, November 13, 1712, of a +consumption, and was attended in his last illness by Doctors Garth, +Radcliffe and Blackmore. In his will he appointed Mrs. Oldfield, the +celebrated actress, his executrix, with whom he had lived for several +years, and by whom he had a son, named Arthur Maynwaring. His +estate was equally divided between this child, its mother and his +sister.--"Memoirs of the Celebrated Persons Comprising the Kit-Kat +Club."] + +When General Churchill, a nephew of the great Duke of Marlborough, +suggested to the disconsolate widow-by-brevet that she should share +his home, the proposal was accepted, and the actress entered for +a second time into a free-and-easy compact, and for a second time +remained faithful thereto until her new admirer went the way of Mr. +Maynwaring. It was even rumoured--scandalous gossip!--that the two +were married; and one day the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen +Caroline, asked the "incomparable sweet girl," who was attending a +royal levee, whether such were indeed the case. "So it is said, may +it please your Royal Highness," diplomatically replied Nance, "but we +have not owned it yet." + +To Churchill our unsteady heroine presented one son, and it was +through the marriage of the latter that the swift-running blood of +Oldfield now courses through the veins of the first Earl of Cadogan's +descendants.[A] This son and the one who bore the name of Maynwaring +were the only two children credited, or discredited, to the actress, +but there appears to have been a mysterious daughter, a Miss Dye +Bertie, who became, as Mrs. Delany tells us, "the pink of fashion +in the _beau monde_, and married a nobleman." It would not be wise, +however, to peer too closely into the dim vista of the past. The +picture might prove unpleasant. + +[Footnote A: Her son, Colonel Churchill, once, unconsciously, saved +Sir Robert Walpole from assassination, through the latter riding home +from the House in the Colonel's chariot instead of alone in his own. +Unstable Churchill married a natural daughter of Sir Robert, and +their daughter Mary married, in 1777, Charles Sloane, first Earl of +Cadogan.... When Churchill and his wife were travelling in France, a +Frenchman, knowing he was connected with poets or players, asked him +if he was Churchill the famous poet. "I am not," said Mrs. Oldfield's +son. "Ma foi!" rejoined the polite Frenchman, "so much the worse for +you."--DR. DORAN.] + +Surely we may have charity for Oldfield, when she dispensed the same +virtue to those around her. Towards none did she show it more sweetly +than to that disreputable fraud and alleged man of genius, Richard +Savage. In his own feverish day Dick Savage cut a literary swath more +wide than enviable, but when he is viewed from the unsympathetic light +of the present he seems merely a clever vagabond. Yet Dr. Johnson, who +could be so stern towards some of his contemporaries, condescended +to love the aforesaid vagabond, in a ponderous, elephantine way, +and deified him by writing the life of the ingrate, or an apology +therefor. Savage had, once upon a time, led the youthful Johnson more +than a few feet away from the path of rectitude, but the philosopher +forgave, without forgetting, the wiles of the tempter, and treated +him with a generosity by no means deserved. In the years of his +prosperity--and the remembrance did him credit--Johnson could never +forget that Savage and himself had been poor together, and had often +wandered through London with hardly a penny to show between them. + + * * * * * + +"It is melancholy to reflect," says Boswell, "that Johnson and Savage +were sometimes in such extreme indigence that they could not pay for +a lodging; so that they have wandered together whole nights in the +streets. Yet in these almost incredible scenes of distress, we may +suppose that Savage mentioned many of the anecdotes with which Johnson +afterwards enriched the life of this unhappy companion, and those of +other poets. + +"He told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that one night in particular, when +Savage and he walked round St. James's Square for want of a lodging, +they were not at all depressed by their situation; but in high spirits +and brimful of patriotism, traversed the square for several hours, +inveighed against the Minister, and resolved they would _stand by +their country_." + + * * * * * + +The claim of Savage that he was the illegitimate son of the Countess +of Macclesfield--a claim which he was always asserting to the point of +coarseness--seems to have been the stock-in-trade of this vagabond's +life. There never was proof that the relationship which he thus +flaunted really existed; for, although the conduct of the Countess[A] +was unpardonable, the poet could never show that he had been the +mysterious infant which had this lady for its mother and Lord Rivers +for an unnatural father. The child disappeared, and nothing more was +ever known of its existence. + +[Footnote A: Anne Mason, wife of Charles Gerrard, first Earl of +Macclesfield, was divorced from that nobleman by an Act of Parliament. +Another earl, Richard Savage, Lord Rivers, was the co-respondent. +This was the same Countess of Macclesfield who subsequently married +Cibber's friend, Colonel Brett.] + +But Savage discovered, or affected to discover, that he was the +missing one, and from that moment made the Countess miserable by his +importunities for recognition and money, more particularly for +the latter. "It was to no purpose," records Dr. Johnson, "that he +frequently solicited her to admit him to see her; she avoided him with +the most vigilant precaution, and ordered him to be excluded from her +house, by whomsoever he might be introduced, and what reason soever he +might give for entering it." And the Doctor, who had an abiding and +very misplaced confidence in the fellow, adds plaintively: "Savage was +at the same time so touched with the discovery of his real mother that +it was his frequent practice to walk in the dark evenings for several +hours before her door in hopes of seeing her as she might come by +accident to the window, or cross her apartment with a candle in her +hand." + +"Touched with the discovery," forsooth! 'Twas a species of blackmail +cloaked in the guise of filial sentiment. + +This talented blackguard was wont to pray for alms from Mistress +Oldfield; and that dear charitable creature (are not most actresses +dear, charitable creatures?) would often waste her practical sympathy +upon him. She despised the man, but, with that generosity so +characteristic of her craft, was ever ready to relieve his +necessities.[A] Well, well, how the glitter from a few guineas can +envelop the fragile doner in a golden light, and throw over her faults +the soft glow of forgiveness. + +[Footnote A: In this (Johnson's) "Life of Savage" 'tis related that +Mrs. Oldfield was very fond of Mr. Savage's conversation, and allowed +him an annuity during her life of L50. These facts are equally +ill-grounded; there was no foundation for them. That Savage's +misfortunes pleaded for pity, and had the desired effect on Mrs. +Oldfield's compassion, is certain; but she so much disliked the man, +and disapproved his conduct, that she never admitted him to her +conversation, nor suffered him to enter her house. She indeed often +relieved him with such donations as spoke her generous disposition. +But this was on the solicitation of friends, who frequently set his +calamities before her in the most piteous light; and, from a principle +of humanity, she became not a little instrumental in saving his +life.--CIBBER'S "Lives of the Poets."] + +Savage himself once turned player, and no one must have been more +amused thereat than the Oldfield. It happened during the summer of +1723, when the poet, who was in his customary state of (theatrical) +destitution, determined to replenish his shabby purse by bringing out +a tragedy. While this play, "The Tragedy of Sir Thomas Overbury,"[A] +was in rehearsal at Drury Lane, Colley Cibber kept the author in +clothes, and the Laureate's son Theophilus, then a very young man, +studied the part of Somerset. The principal actors were not in London +just then, it being the off season, when the younger players strutted +across the classic boards of the house, and Savage determined himself +to enact Sir Thomas. He did so with melancholy results; even Johnson +admits the failure of so presumptuous a leap before the footlights, +"for neither his voice, look, nor gesture were such as were expected +on the stage; and he was so much ashamed of having been reduced to +appear as a player, that he always blotted out his name from the list +when a copy of his tragedy was to be shown to his friends."[B] + +[Footnote A: Savage, with his usual bad taste, published this tragedy +as the work of "Richard Savage, _son of the late Earl Rivers_."] + +[Footnote B: In the publication of his performance he was more +successful, for the rays of genius that glimmered in it, that +glimmered through all the mists which poverty and Cibber had been able +to spread over it, procured him the notice and esteem of many persons +eminent for their rank, their virtue, and their wit. Of this play, +acted, printed, and dedicated, the accumulated profits arose to an +hundred pounds, which he thought at that time a very large sum, having +been never master of so much before. In the "Dedication," for which +he received ten guineas, there is nothing remarkable. The preface +contains a very liberal enconium on the blooming excellence of Mr. +Theophilus Cibber, which Mr. Savage could not in the latter part of +his life see his friends about to read without snatching the play out +of their hands.--DR. JOHNSON.] + +What a sublime hypocrite our Richard was, to be sure. That he felt so +keenly the disgrace (?) of "having been reduced to appear as a player" +was, no doubt, a sentiment intended for the exclusive ear of the great +lexicographer, whose prejudice against the stage and its followers was +strong to the point of absurdity. Despite the qualms of the poet +over exposing his sacred self to the gaze of an audience he had no +sensitiveness in receiving the money of an actress, and he was willing +enough to have her aid in another direction. + +That aid was cheerfully given once upon a time when Savage came +dangerously near the scaffold. This prince of scamps and wanderer +among the beery precincts of pot-houses happened to stroll one night, +accompanied by two choice spirits (and himself full of spirits) into +a disreputable coffee-house near Charing Cross. The three men rudely +pushed their way into a parlour where some other roisterers were +drinking; the intrusion was naturally resented, and as each and every +one of the party chanced to be better filled with wine than with +politeness, a brawl was the consequence. Swords were drawn and Savage +killed a Mr. Sinclair, after which drunken act he cut the head of +a barmaid who tried to hold him. Then more swearing, shrieking and +sword-thrusting, a cry for soldiers, a flight from the coffee-house, +and an almost instant arrest. A pretty picture, was it not? + +When Savage was put on trial for his life, he pleaded that the killing +of Sinclair was done in self-defence, and his acquittal would probably +have followed but for the shrewdness of the prosecution. This +prosecution was conducted by Francis Page, whose severity Pope +immortalised in the lines: + + "Slander or poison dread from Delia's rage + Hard-words or hanging--if your judge be Page." + +Page surely understood human nature, or that portion of it +appertaining to the average jurymen, and he disposed of Mr. Savage's +defence by one well-directed blow when he said to the good men and +true: "Gentlemen of the jury, you are to consider that Mr. Savage is +a very great man, a much greater man than you or I, gentlemen of the +jury; that he wears very fine clothes, much finer clothes than you +or I, gentlemen of the jury; that he has abundance of money in his +pocket, much more money than you or I, gentlemen of the jury; but, +gentlemen of the jury, is it not a very hard case, gentlemen of the +jury, that Mr. Savage should therefore kill you, or me, gentlemen of +the jury." + +Whereupon the defendant began to make a speech in his own behalf, but +his flow of eloquence was quenched by the judge, and the jury soon +found Savage as well as Gregory, one of his companions in the drunken +broil, to be guilty of murder. Many influences were now brought to +bear on Queen Caroline, consort of George II., to secure a pardon for +the rascal, but that good lady was for a time obdurate. She had heard +a few choice stories anent the man, and among them, one which Dr. +Johnson glosses over in this way: "Mr. Savage, when he had discovered +his birth, had an incessant desire to speak to his mother, who always +avoided him in public, and refused him admission into her house. +One evening walking, as it was his custom, in the street that she +inhabited, he saw the door of her house by accident open, he entered +it, and, finding no person in the passage to hinder him, went upstairs +to salute her. She discovered him before he entered her chamber, +alarmed the family with the most distressful outcries, and when she +had by her screams gathered them about her, ordered them to drive +out of the house that villain who had forced himself in upon her and +endeavoured to murder her. Savage, who had attempted with the most +submissive tenderness to soften her rage, hearing her utter so +detestable an accusation, thought it prudent to retire." + +Thus the Queen refused to interfere until the Countess of Hertford +pleaded the cause of the imprisoned poet. In the meantime Mistress +Oldfield interceded with the mighty Robert Walpole, and the result of +all this wire-pulling was that Savage received the king's pardon,[A] +being thus left free to continue the persecution of his alleged +mother, to beg from friends and strangers alike, and to follow a +mode of life which scandalised even his kindly biographer. And when +Oldfield, the latchets of whose shoes he was not worthy to tie, played +her last part and passed away from the earthly stage, Richard wore +mourning for her, as for a mother, "but did not celebrate her in +elegies;[B] because he knew that too great profusion of praise would +only have revived those faults which his natural equity did not allow +him to think less because they were committed by one who favoured him; +but of which, though his virtue would not endeavour to palliate them, +his gratitude would not suffer him to prolong the memory or diffuse +the censure." + +[Footnote A: March 1728. It is cheerful to know that Mr. Gregory also +escaped hanging. It was contended during the trial, and afterwards, +that the testimony against both these defendants was more damning than +the facts warranted.] + +[Footnote B: Nevertheless Savage did write a poem in Oldfield's +honour, although he did not sign his virtuous name thereto. The verses +are quoted by Chetwood. _Vide_ Chapter XI.] + +Poor, crusty Samuel! what rot you could write now and then, and how +you did hate players and their craft. But may not the bewildered +reader ask how the aphorisms of the doctor and the disreputable +affairs of Savage concern that home life of Nance to which the +chapter is presumably consecrated? In answer the writer can only cry +"Peccavi," and, having done so, will sin boldly again by giving one +more anecdote. The story concerns Savage, but Steele is the hero of +it, and as winsome Dick is always welcome, we may take leave of the +other Dick in a pleasant way. + +Savage was once desired by Sir Richard (says Johnson), with an air +of the utmost importance, to come very early to his house the next +morning. Mr. Savage came as he had promised, found the chariot at the +door, and Sir Richard waiting for him and ready to go out. What was +intended, and whither they were to go, Savage could not conjecture, +and was not willing to inquire; but immediately seated himself with +Sir Richard. The coachman was ordered to drive, and they hurried with +the utmost expedition to Hyde Park Corner, where they stopped at a +petty tavern and retired to a private room. Sir Richard then informed +him that he intended to publish a pamphlet, and that he had desired +him to come thither that he might write for him. He soon sat down to +the work. Sir Richard dictated, and Savage wrote, till the dinner that +had been ordered was put upon the table. Savage was surprised at the +meanness of the entertainment, and after some hesitation ventured to +ask for wine, which Sir Richard, not without reluctance, ordered to +be brought. They then finished their dinner, and proceeded in their +pamphlet, which they concluded in the afternoon. + +Mr. Savage then imagined his task over, and expected that Sir Richard +would call for the reckoning and return home; but his expectations +deceived him, for Sir Richard told him that he was without money, and +that the pamphlet must be sold before the dinner could be paid for; +and Savage was therefore obliged to go and offer their new production +to sale for two guineas, which with some difficulty he obtained. Sir +Richard then returned home, having retired that day only to avoid his +creditors, and composed the pamphlet only to discharge his reckoning. + +Savage also told Johnson another merry tale of careless Dick. "Sir +Richard Steele having one day invited to his house a great number of +persons of the first quality, they were surprised at the number of +liveries which surrounded the table; and after dinner, when wine and +mirth had set them free from the observation of a rigid ceremony, +one of them inquired of Sir Richard how such an expensive train of +domestics could be consistent with his fortune. Sir Richard very +frankly confessed that they were fellows of whom he would very +willingly be rid. And being then asked why he did not discharge them, +declared that they were bailiffs, who had introduced themselves with +an execution, and whom, since he could not send them away, he had +thought it convenient to embellish with liveries, that they might +do him credit while they stayed. His friends were diverted with the +expedient, and by paying the debt discharged their attendants, having +obliged Sir Richard to promise that they should never again find him +graced with a retinue of the same kind." + + +These little pleasantries are echoes of the halcyon days when Steele +thought Savage a very fine fellow, made him an allowance and even +proposed to become the poet's father-in-law. But the recipient of all +this favour was caddish enough to ridicule his patron, a kind friend +mentioned the fact to Sir Richard, and the knight shut his doors on +the ingrate. Let us, likewise, give the fellow his _conge_. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE MIMIC WORLD + + +We have seen that Oldfield affected to despise tragedy, and was wont +to suggest Mistress Porter as a lady better suited than herself to the +purposes of train-bearing. And as the present chapter will be devoted +to a few of Nance's contemporaries let us linger, if only for an +instant, over the imposing memory of one whom cynical Horace Walpole +thought even finer than Garrick in certain scenes of passion. This +"ornament to human nature," as a biographer warmly called the Porter, +played her first childish part in a Lord Mayor's pageant during +the reign of James II., appearing as the Genius of Britain, and +incidentally falling under the august notice of another genius of +Britain, the great Mr. Betterton. That worthy man regarded the little +girl with prophetic eyes, saw in her a wealth of undeveloped talent, +and was soon instructing the chit in the mysteries of dramatic art. +Sometimes the actress-in-miniature revolted, poor mite ("she should +have been in the nursery, the minx," says some practical reader) and +then noble Thomas would give vent to an awful threat. She must speak +and act as she was directed, or else--horrible thought--the child +should be thrown into the basket of an orange-girl and buried under +one of the vine leaves which hid the luscious fruit! And with +that punishment hanging over her, the novice went on learning and +originating, until one day London woke up to find a new tragedienne +within its boundaries. + +[Illustration: Mr. Mills, Mrs. Porter, Mr. Cibber.] + +'Twas a tragedienne, be it added, who possessed no wonderful charm +of person. She was pleasing in figure and bearing, but her voice was +naturally harsh, her features did not shine forth loveliness, and when +the scene wherein she walked called neither for vehemence of feeling, +nor melting tenderness, her elocution became a monotonous cadence.[A] +Yet in moments of dramatic excitement, or in places where the deep +note of pathos had to be sounded, Porter played with a distinction +that either thrilled the spectator or reduced him to the verge of +tears. She threw cadence and monotony to the four winds of heaven, +or rather to the four corners of the stage, and spoke with the +earnestness of one inspired. + +[Footnote A: Mrs. Porter was tall, fair, well-shaped, and easy and +dignified in action. But she was not handsome, and her voice had a +small degree of tremor. Moreover, she imitated, or, rather, faultily +exceeded, Mrs. Barry in the habit of prolonging and toning her +pronunciation, sometimes to a degree verging upon a chant; but +whether it was that the public ear was at that period accustomed to a +demi-chant, or that she threw off the defect in the heat of passion, +it is certain that her general judgment and genius, in the highest +bursts of tragedy, inspired enthusiasm in all around her, and that +she was thought to be alike mistress of the terrible and the +tender.--THOMAS CAMPBELL.] + +As Queen Catherine Mrs. Porter was all mournful grace and dignity, as +Lady Macbeth she breathed of battle, murder and sudden death, and in +the role of Belvidera she showed yet another phase of her incomparable +art. "I remember Mrs. Porter, to whom nature had been so niggard in +voice and face, so great in many parts, as Lady Macbeth, Alicia in +'Jane Shore,' Hermione in the 'Distressed Mother,' and many parts of +the kind, that her great action, eloquence of look and gesture, moved +astonishment; and yet I have heard her declare she left the action +to the possession of the sentiments in the part she performed." Thus +wrote Chetwood, whose good fortune it was to see Oldfield, and Porter, +and a host of other famous players, not forgetting, in later days, the +wonderful Garrick himself. + +Unlike several of her ilk, Mistress Porter could play the heroine off +the stage as well as on. She lived at Heywoodhill, near Hendon, and +used to wend her way homeward every night, at the conclusion of the +play, in a one-horse chaise. The roads were dangerous, and highwaymen +lurked in the neighbourhood, but the actress put her faith in +Providence--and a brace of pistols which she always carried. The +pistols came very nicely to her rescue one evening when a robber +waylaid the chaise and put to the traveller the conventional question +as to whether she most valued her money or her life. Nothing daunted +by the impertinence of this ethical query, Mrs. Porter pointed one of +the weapons at the intruder, and he, so goes the story, gracefully +surrendered, for the reason that he was himself without firearms. The +man made the best of the situation, however, by assuring the occupant +of the vehicle that he was "no common thief," and had been driven to +his present course by the wants of a starving family. He told her, +at the same time, where he lived, and urged his distresses with such +earnestness, that she spared him all the money in her purse, which was +about ten guineas.[A] + +[Footnote A: Bellchambers' "Memoirs." This episode happened in the +summer of 1731.] + +Thereupon the highwayman departed, and Mrs. Porter whipped up her +horse. In her excitement she must have used the lash too freely, for +the animal started to run, the chaise was overturned, and the actress +dislocated her thigh bone. When she had in part recovered from the +accident, the victim made up a purse of sixty pounds, subscribed +among her friends, and sent it to the poverty-stricken family of the +desperado. How Nance would have laughed at the story had she been at +the theatre to hear it told. But there was no more merriment for +this daughter of smiles; she was lying cold and still amid the stony +grandeur of Westminster Abbey. + +Poor Porter outlived Oldfield for more than thirty years and, having +also outlived an annuity settled upon herself, spent her declining +days in what polite writers call straightened circumstances. One of +the closing scenes of her career shows us a meeting between this +veteran of the stage and Dr. Johnson, who could allow his kindness +of heart and sense of generosity to overcome his hatred of things +theatrical. It is easy to imagine the whole interview: the shrunken +face of the Porter beaming all over with an appreciation of the honour +paid her, and the Doctor full of benevolence and patronising courtesy, +even to the extent of drinking cheap tea without a grumble. After the +philosopher takes his leave he will likewise take with him a vivid +memory of the beldam's many wrinkles--so many, indeed, that "a +picture of old age in the abstract might have been taken from her +countenance."[A] + +[Footnote A: Dr. Johnson was pleased to avow that "Mrs. Porter in the +vehemence of rage, and Mrs. Clive in the sprightliness of humour, he +had never seen equalled."] + +Of a different calibre was Lacy Ryan, an ill-trained genius who could +shine pretty well in both tragedy and comedy and from whom, according +to Foote, + + "... succeeding Richards took the cue, + And hence his style, if not the colour, drew."[A] + +[Footnote A: Justice has scarcely been done to Ryan's merit. Garrick, +on going with Woodward to see his Richard with a view of being amused, +owned that he was astonished at the genius and power he saw struggling +to make itself felt through the burden of ill-training, uncouth +gestures, and an ungraceful and slovenly figure. He was generous +enough to own that all the merit there was in his own playing of +Richard he had drawn from studying this less fortunate player.--PERCY +FITZGERALD.] + +Like Mrs. Porter, Ryan was a youthful disciple of Betterton, and was +brought to the notice of Roscius in a curious fashion. One day, when +Lacy had just begun, as a boy of sixteen or seventeen, to court the +dramatic muses, he was cast for the role of Seyton, the old officer +who attends on Macbeth, and was, no doubt, charmed with the +assignment. To wait upon Macbeth, in however humble a capacity, was +in itself no mean honour, and when the aforesaid Macbeth would be +Betterton himself, the importance of the task was re-doubled. + +That afternoon Ryan came on the stage in all the glory of a +full-bottomed wig (imagine playing Shakespeare these days with +full-bottomed wigs) and a smiling young face, being very much pleased +with himself and the world in general. To Betterton, who had expected +to see in Seyton a henchman of mature years, and who up to this moment +had been unconscious of Lacy's existence, the appearance of the boy +came as a shock. Had the witches of the tragedy been turned into +beautiful children he could not have been more surprised. However, he +gave the new Seyton an encouraging look, and the stripling played the +part in a way to earn the approbation of the great actor. After the +performance was over, Betterton scolded old Downes, the prompter, for +"sending a child to him instead of a man advanced in years." + +This anecdote seems to show that the art of "make-up" had not reached +perfection in those times, for a few well-put strokes of the pencil +should have destroyed the juvenile aspect of Seyton. It must not be +supposed, nevertheless, that the decoration of the face was unknown, +and an entry in Pepys' delightful diary proves that "make-up" of a +certain kind flourished at the Restoration. "To the King's house," +says Pepys, "and there going in met with Knipp, and she took us up +into the tireing-rooms;[A] and to the women's shift, where Nell +(Gwyne) was dressing herself, and was all unready, and is very pretty, +prettier than I thought. (Imagine the gloating eyes of the old +hypocrite.) And into the scene-room, and there sat down, and she gave +us fruit: and here I read the questions to Knipp, while she answered +me, through all her part of 'Flora's Figarys,' which was acted to-day. +But, Lord! to see how they were both painted, would make a man mad, +and did make me loath them: and what base company of men comes among +them; and how loudly they talk! And how poor the men are in clothes, +and yet what a show they make on the stage by candle-light, is very +observable. But to see how Nell cursed, for having so few people in +the pit, was strange," _et cetera_.[B] + +[Footnote A: Mrs. Knipp was an actress belonging to the King's Company +and Mr. Pepys had for her a timid admiration.] + +[Footnote B: In his notes to Cibber's "Apology," Lowe suggests the +plausible theory that young actors playing "juveniles" did not use +any "make-up" or paint, but went on the stage with their natural +complexion. He instances this paragraph from Cibber: "The first thing +that enters into the head of a young actor is that of being a heroe: +In this ambition I was soon snubb'd by the insufficiency of my voice; +to which might be added an uniform'd meagre person (tho' then not +ill-made) with a dismal pale complexion."] + +To leave the merry days of Charles II, and wander back to those of +Queen Anne, it may be said that Ryan made his first success as the +Marcus in the original production of "Cato." It was a success rather +added to than otherwise by an adventure of which this actor was the +unfortunate victim. "In the run of that celebrated tragedy," writes +Chetwood, "he was accidently brought into a fray with some of our +Tritons on the Thames; and, in the scuffle, a blow on the nose was +given him by one of these water-bullies, who neither regard men or +manners. I remember, the same night, as he was brought on the bier, +after his suppos'd death in the fourth act of 'Cato,' the blood, from +the real wound in the face, gush'd out with violence; that hurt had +no other effect than just turning his nose a little, tho' not to +deformity; yet some people imagine it gave a very small alteration to +the tone of his voice, tho' nothing disagreeable." And a very good +advertisement it was, no doubt. + +In later years another much-discussed accident befell Mr. Ryan. As he +was going home from the theatre one night, the actor was attacked by a +footpad, and received in his face two bullets which broke a portion of +his jaw. "By the help of a lamp [again is the quotation from Chetwood] +the robber knew Mr. Ryan, as I have been inform'd, begg'd his pardon +for his mistake, and ran off. Of this hurt, too, he recover'd, after a +long illness, and play'd with success, as before, without any seeming +alteration of voice or face. His Royal Highness, upon this accident +(was it the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II?) sent him a +handsome present; and others, of the nobility, copy'd the laudable +example of the second illustrious person in the three kingdoms." + +This was Lacy Ryan, who in his time played many different parts, among +them Iago, Hamlet, Macduff, Captain Plume, and Orestes. He was not in +any sense of the word a great actor, but he well adorned the station +of theatrical life in which it had pleased heaven to place him, and +strutted his lengthy hour upon the stage with much satisfaction to +his companions and the public. Even when Ryan had to kill a bully in +self-defence (it was a fellow named Kelly, who loved to haunt the +coffee-houses, pick quarrels with peaceable citizens, and then half +murder them), the world looked on approvingly, and averred that the +player had acted with his usual conscientiousness. + +Another contemporary of Nance was Benjamin Johnson,[A] who achieved +curiously enough some of his greatest successes in the plays of his +namesake, the other Ben Jonson. He began life as a scene painter, but +afterwards turned his attention to the front, rather than the back, +of the stage--or, as he would humorously explain, "left the saint's +occupation to take that of a sinner." Johnson seems to have been a man +of the world, and he saw a good deal of life, even though he never +passed through the rough-and-tumble adventures of Lacy Ryan. When he +was born (1665) Betterton dominated the boards; when he died (1742) +Garrick had become the talk of London; and it is probable that in his +latter years Ben could tell many a story of interesting experiences. + +[Footnote A: Ben Johnson excelled greatly in all his namesake's +comedies, then frequently acted. He was of all comedians the chastest +and closest observer of nature. Johnson never seemed to know that he +was before an audience; he drew his character as the poet designed +it.--DAVIES.] + +There was one story, at least, that this actor used to relate with +much unction after a visit which he once paid to Dublin. The hero of +the affair was an Irishman, named Baker, who relieved the monotony +of his work as a master pavior by acting Sir John Falstaff and other +parts. When he was in the streets, overseeing the labours of his men, +this pavior-artist usually rehearsed one of his characters, muttering +the lines, gesticulating, and almost forgetting that he was without +the sacred walls of a theatre. The workmen soon got accustomed to +these out-of-door performances, and everything proceeded with the +utmost smoothness, until one exciting day when Baker chanced to be +alone with two new paviors. These recruits (countrymen from Cheshire) +were much alarmed at a sudden change in the demeanour of their master, +whose eyes began to roll and lips to move under the pressure of some +strange emotion. Baker was merely rehearsing Falstaff; but the two men +made up their little minds that he had lost his head, and they felt +quite sure that their employer was a dangerous lunatic, when he gave +them a piercing glance, and cried: + +"Soft! who are you? Sir Walter Blunt: there's honour for you! here's +no vanity! I am as hot as molten lead, and as heavy too. God keep lead +out of me!" + +"Wauns! I'se blunt enough to take care of you, I'se warrant you," +shouted one of the workmen, who had now recovered what he presumed to +be his wits, and thereupon he and his companion laid violent hands on +Baker. A crowd soon gathered, and despite the indignant cries of +the master-pavior, who declared he was never more sane, this son of +Thespis was tied hand and foot, and carried home in triumph with a +howling mob for attendants. That ended Mr. Baker's rehearsal for the +nonce; and it is to be presumed that, when next he essayed the lusty +Sir John, he made sure of an appreciative audience. + +It is a seductive occupation to delve into the lives of these bygone +players, and there is always temptation to tarry long and lovingly +amid such chequered careers. But, like poor Joe, of Dickens, we must +keep moving on, and so leave Johnson and Baker for another actor +who waits to strut across the stage of these "Palmy Days." Thomas +Elrington is the new-comer; the same Elrington who sought to outshine +the tragic Barton Booth, without possessing either the genius or the +scholarship of that noble son of Melpomene. As a boy, Thomas was +apprenticed by an impecunious father to an upholsterer in Covent +Garden, but he cared more for the theatre than for his trade, and +was, no doubt, regarded by his employer as a future candidate for the +gallows. + + * * * * * + +"I remember when he was an apprentice," relates Chetwood, "we play'd +in several private plays; when we were preparing to act 'Sophonisba, +or Hannibal's Overthrow,' after I had wrote out my part of Massiva I +carried him the book of the play to study the part of King Masinissa. +I found him finishing a velvet cushion, and gave him the book: +but alas! before he could secrete it, his master (a hot, voluble +Frenchman), came in upon us, and the book was thrust under the velvet +of the cushion. His master, as usual, rated him for not working, with +a 'Morbleu! why a you not vark, Tom?' and stood over him so long that +I saw, with some mortification, the book irrecoverably stitch'd up in +the cushion never to be retriev'd till the cushion is worn to pieces. +Poor Tom cast many a desponding look upon me when he was finishing the +fate of the play, while every stitch went to both our hearts. + +"His master observing our looks, turn'd to me, and with words that +broke their necks over each other for haste, abused both of us. The +most intelligible of his great number of words were Jack Pudenges, and +the like expressions of contempt. But our play was gone for ever. + +"Another time," continues the biographer, "we were so bold to attempt +Shakespeare's 'Hamlet,' where our 'prentice Tom had the part of the +Ghost, father to young Hamlet. His armour was composed of pasteboard, +neatly painted. The Frenchman had intelligence of what we were about, +and to our great surprise and mortification, made one of our audience. +The Ghost in its first appearance is dumb to Horatio. While these +scenes past, the Frenchman only muttered between his teeth, and we +were in hopes his passion would subside; but when our Ghost began his +first speech to Hamlet, 'Mark me,' he replied, 'Begar, me vil marke +you presently!' and, without saying any more, beat our poor Ghost off +the stage through the street, while every stroke on the pasteboard +armour grieved the auditors (because they did not pay for their +seats), insomuch that three or four ran after the Ghost, and brought +him back in triumph, with the avenging Frenchman at his heels, who +would not be appeas'd till our Ghost promised him never to commit the +offence of acting again. A promise made, like many others, never to be +kept." + + * * * * * + +Elrington ultimately became a favourite player with Dublin audiences, +and then contested with Booth in the latter's own ground of London. He +never equalled the classic Barton, yet made a success in tragedy, and +was once asked (1728-9) to join the forces of Drury Lane for a term +of years. He told the managers that he could not think of permanently +leaving Ireland, where he was so well rewarded for his services, and +added, "There is not a gentleman's house there to which I am not a +welcome visitor," which shows that an actor can be a snob, like the +worst of us. + +When Elrington died, two years after the taking off of Oldfield, his +epitaph was written in these flattering lines:-- + + "Thou best of actors here interr'd, + No more thy charming voice is heard, + This grave thy corse contains: + Thy better part, which us'd to move + Our admiration, and our Love, + Has fled its sad remains. + + "Tho' there's no monumental brass, + Thy sacred relicks to encase, + Thou wondrous man of art! + A lover of the muse divine, + O! Elrington, shall be thy shrine, + And carve thee in his heart." + +One of Elrington's friends and artistic associates happened to be +John Evans, a player possessed of talent, fatness, and indolence. As +adventures seem to be in order in this chapter, let us recall two +which occurred to this gentleman at a time when he was in high favour +with the Irish. The first episode, making a warlike prologue to the +second, had for its scene a tavern in the good city of Cork, where +Evans had been invited to sup by some officers stationed in the +neighbourhood. Jack responded gladly to the hospitable suggestion; the +gathering proved a great success, the wine was circulated generously, +and many toasts were offered. When the actor was called upon for a +sentiment, he proposed the health of his gracious sovereign, Anne, +whereat all in the company were pleased with the exception of one +disloyal redcoat. Whether the latter had within him the contrariness +which cometh with too liberal dalliance with the flowing bowl, or +whether he chanced to be a Jacobite, further deponent sayeth not, but +it is at least certain that the officer was not pleased at the honour +paid to the Queen whose uniform he was willing to wear. So Mr. +Malcontent leaves the room, and then sends up word to poor, +inoffensive Jack, that he will be delighted to see that worthy below +stairs; whereupon Jack quietly steals away and finds his would-be +antagonist lurking behind a half-opened door. The soldier makes a +lunge with his sword at the player, who succeeds in disarming the +coward, and there the matter apparently stops. + +But the end was not yet. When Evans went to Dublin, he found that his +late challenger was circulating a lie, which made it appear that the +comedian had in somewise affronted the whole British Army. No sooner +did Jack put his face upon the stage than a great clamour arose, and +it was decreed by the bullies among the audience (of whom there are +ever a few in every house), that no play should be presented until the +culprit had publicly begged pardon for a sin which he never committed. +The play was "The Rival Queens," the part assigned to Evans that of +Alexander, but 'twas some time before this Alexander could be induced +to crave the forgiveness of the excitable Dublinites. Finally he +yielded to expediency, and, coming forward to the centre of the stage, +expressed his contrition. At this, a puppy in the pit cried out +"Kneel, you rascal!" and Evans, now thoroughly exasperated, tartly +answered: "No, you rascal! I'll kneel to none but God, and my Queen." +Then the performance began.[A] + +[Footnote A: "As there were many worthy gentlemen of the army who knew +the whole affair, the new rais'd clamour ceas'd, and the play went +through without any molestation, and, by degrees, things return'd to +their proper channel By this we may see, it is some danger for an +actor to be in the right."--CHETWOOD.] + +How Chetwood bubbles over with a stream of ever-flowing anecdote. Much +that he gives us in his "General History of the Stage" is only gossip, +yet what is there more fascinating than tittle-tattle about players? +The gossip of the drawing-room is merely inane, or else scandalous; +but shift the scene to the theatre, and a story no longer bores; it is +consecrated by the sacrament of interest. Is any apology necessary, +therefore, if the quotation marks be again brought into requisition. +This time the anecdote is of Thomas Griffith, an excellent comedian, +and a harmless poet. + +"After his commencing actor, he contracted a friendship with Mr. +Wilks; which chain remained unbroke till the death of that excellent +comedian. Tho' Mr. Griffith was very young, Mr. Wilks took him with +him to London (from Dublin), and had him entered for that season at +a small salary. The 'Indian Emperor' being ordered on a sudden to +be played, the part of Pizarro, a Spaniard, was wanting, which Mr. +Griffith procured, with some difficulty. Mr. Betterton being a little +indisposed, would not venture out to rehearsal, for fear of increasing +his indisposition, to the disappointment of the audience, who had not +seen our young stripling rehearse. But, when he came ready, at the +entrance, his ears were pierced with a voice not familiar to him. He +cast his eyes upon the stage, where he beheld the diminutive Pizarro, +with a truncheon as long as himself (his own words.) + +"He steps up to Downs, the prompter, and cry'd, 'Zounds, Downs, what +sucking scaramouch have you sent on there?' 'Sir,' replied Downs, +'He's good enough for a Spaniard; the part is small.' Betterton +return'd, 'If he had made his eyebrows his whiskers, and each whisker +a line, the part would have been two lines too much for such a monkey +in buskins.' + +"Poor Griffith stood on the stage, near the door, and heard every +syllable of the short dialogue, and by his fears knew who was meant by +it; but, happy for him, he had no more to speak that scene. When the +first act was over (by the advice of Downs) he went to make his excuse +with--'Indeed, Sir, I had not taken the part, but there was only I +alone out of the play.' 'I! I!' reply'd Betterton, with a smile, 'Thou +art but the tittle of an I.' Griffith seeing him in no ill humour told +him, 'Indians ought to be the best figures on the stage, as nature had +made them.' 'Very like,' reply'd Betterton, 'but it would be a double +death to an Indian cobbler to be conquer'd by such a weazle of a +Spaniard as thou art. And, after this night, let me never see a +truncheon in thy hand again, unless to stir the fire.' ... He took his +advice, laid aside the buskin, and stuck to the sock, in which he made +a figure equal to most of his contemporaries. + + "Our genius flutters with the plumes of youth, + But observation wings to steddy truth." + +No one can resist telling another story, this time of fat Charles +Hulet, whose abilities were only equalled by his corpulence. Having +been apprenticed to a bookseller, he straightway proceeded to take a +violent interest in the drama, and would often while away the evenings +by spouting Shakespeare and other authors. In lieu of a company to +support him young Hulet would designate each chair in the kitchen to +represent one of the characters in the play he was reciting. "One +night, as he was repeating the part of Alexander, with his wooden +representative of Clytus (an old elbow-chair), and coming to the +speech where the old General is to be kill'd, this young mock +Alexander snatch'd a poker instead of a javelin, and threw it with +such strength against poor Clytus, that the chair was kill'd upon +the spot, and lay mangled on the floor. The death of Clytus made a +monstrous noise, which disturbed the master in the parlour, who called +out to know the reason; and was answered by the cook below, 'Nothing, +sir, but that Alexander has kill'd Clytus.'" + + * * * * * + +In latter days Hulet took great pride in the sonorous tones of his +voice, and loved nothing more dearly than to steal up behind a man and +startle the unsuspecting one by giving a very loud "Hem." It was a +"Hem," however, which helped to make the actor's winding-sheet, for +one fine day he repeated the trick, burst a blood-vessel, and died +within twenty-four hours. + +Heaven bless all these merry vagabonds! We may not always wish to +follow in their footsteps, but we like to keep near them and pry into +their careless, happy lives. When the Bohemians enter a pot-house we +are too virtuous, presumably, to go in likewise, but we stand without, +to get a tempting whiff of hot negus and a snatch of some genial jest +or tuneful song. Then, if our players stray, perchance, into the +gloomy precincts of a pawn-shop, are we not quite prepared to steal up +to the window and discover what tribute is being paid to mine uncle? +And so, speaking of pot-houses, and negus, and pawn-shops, let us end +our extracts from the invaluable Chetwood with this unconventional +reminiscence of another player, Mr. John Thurmond. It was a custom at +that time for persons of the first rank and distinction to give their +birthday suits to the most favoured actors. I think Mr. Thurmond was +honoured by General Ingolsby with his. But his finances being at the +last tide of ebb, the rich suit was put in buckle (a cant word for +forty in the hundred interest). One night, notice was given that the +General would be present with the Government at the play, and all +the performers on the stage were preparing to dress out in the suits +presented. The spouse of Johnny (as he was commonly called) try'd all +her arts to persuade Mr. Holdfast, the pawnbroker (as it fell out, his +real name) to let go the cloaths for that evening, to be returned when +the play was over. But all arguments were fruitless; nothing but +the Ready, or a pledge of full equal value. Such people would have +despised a Demosthenes, or a Cicero, with all their rhetorical +flourishes, if their oratorian gowns had been in pledge. Well! what +must be done? The whole family in confusion and all at their wits-end; +disgrace, with her glaring eyes and extended mouth, ready to devour. +Fatal appearance! + + * * * * * + +"At last Winny, the wife (that is, Winnifrede), put on a compos'd +countenance (but, alas! with a troubled heart); stepp'd to a +neighbouring tavern, and bespoke a very hot negus, to comfort Johnny +in the great part he was to perform that night, begging to have the +silver tankard with the lid, because, as she said, 'a covering, and +the vehicle silver, would retain heat longer than any other metal,' +The request was comply'd with, the negus carry'd to the playhouse +piping hot, popp'd into a vile earthen mug--the tankard _l'argent_ +travelled _incog_. under her apron (like the Persian ladies veil'd), +popp'd into the pawnbroker's hands, in exchange for the suit--put on +and play'd its part, with the rest of the wardrobe; when its duty +was over, carried back to remain in its old depository; the tankard +return'd the right road; and, when the tide flowed with its lunar +influence, the stranded suit was wafted into safe harbour again, after +paying a little for 'dry docking,' which was all the damage received." + + * * * * * + +And Mr. Chetwood adds: + + "Thus woman's wit (tho' some account it evil) + With artful wiles can overreach the Devil." + +Among such as these, good, bad and indifferent, moral and otherwise, +did Mistress Oldfield pass what hours she consecrated to the theatre. +In the early years, when merely a poor, struggling postulant before +the altar of fame, the girl must have been more or less intimate with +her dramatic associates, but as time went on and Nance blazed into a +star of the first magnitude, the old feeling of fellowship may have +become weakened. Not that the actress was in any sense snobbish; +rather let it be said that the circumstances of her celebrity proved +quite enough, in the course of human affairs, to separate her from the +other players. Indeed, one of her biographers relates that Oldfield +always went in state to Drury Lane, accompanied by two footmen, and +that she seldom spoke to any one of the actors.[A] + +[Footnote A: She always went to the house (_i.e._, the theatre) in the +same dress she had worn at dinner in her visits to the houses of great +people; for she was much caressed on account of her general merit, and +her connection with Mr. Churchill. She used to go to the playhouse in +a chair, attended by two footmen; she seldom spoke to any one of +the actors, and was allowed a sum of money to buy her own +clothes.--"General Biographical Dictionary."] + +Nance may have made her entry into the green-room amid royal auspices, +but who can for a second believe that "she seldom spoke to any one +of the actors"? There was in her composition too much of sunshine to +warrant any such belief, and then we know that behind the scenes she +was ever affable and friendly. If she did not brook familiarity which +comes of contempt, and if she moved about among her companions with +dignity, then so much the better. + +Of Nance's sweetness of temper and sterling common-sense, Cibber +has left us an attractive memory. It seems that when the Drury Lane +management determined to revive "The Provoked Wife" of Sir John +Vanbrugh (January 1726), Colley suggested that Wilks should take a +rest during the run of the piece, and allow Barton Booth to play the +lover, Constant. The idea did not meet with Wilks' approval; "down +dropt his brow, and fur'd were his features"; and the green-room +became the scene of a violent spat between Cibber and himself, with +Mrs. Oldfield and other members of the company as excited listeners. +Finally the author of the "Apology" said: "Are you not every day +complaining of your being over-labour'd? And now, upon the first +offering to ease you, you fly into a passion, and pretend to make that +a greater grievance than t'other: But, Sir, if your being in or out of +the play is a hardship, you shall impose it upon yourself: The part is +in your hand, and to us it is a matter of indifference now whether you +take it or leave it." + +[Illustration: SIR JOHN VANBRUGH By Sir GODFREY KNELLER] + +Upon this Mr. Wilks "threw down the part upon the table, crossed +his arms, and sate knocking his heel upon the floor, as seeming to +threaten most when he said least." Hereupon Booth generously yielded +up the much disputed Constant to his rival with the remark that "for +his part, he saw no such great matter in acting every day; for he +believed it the wholsomest exercise in the world; it kept the spirits +in motion, and always gave him a good stomach"--and the elegant +Barton, be it remembered, was a great eater. + + * * * * * + +"Here," says Cibber, "I observed Mrs. Oldfield began to titter behind +her fan. But Wilks being more intent upon what Booth had said, +reply'd, every one could best feel for himself, but he did not pretend +to the strength of a pack-horse; therefore if Mrs. Oldfield would +chuse anybody else to play with her, he should be very glad to be +excus'd. This throwing the negative upon Mrs. Oldfield was, indeed, a +sure way to save himself; which I could not help taking notice of, by +saying it was making but an ill compliment to the company to suppose +there was but one man in it fit to play an ordinary part with her. + +"Here Mrs. Oldfield got up, and turning me half round to come forward, +said with her usual frankness, 'Pooh! you are all a parcel of fools, +to make such a rout about nothing!' Rightly judging that the person +most out of humour would not be more displeased at her calling us all +by the same name. As she knew, too, the best way of ending the debate +would be to help the weak, she said, she hop'd Mr. Wilks would not so +far mind what had past as to refuse his acting the part with her; for +tho' it might not be so good as he had been us'd to, yet she believed +those who had bespoke the play would expect to have it done to the +best advantage, and it would make but an odd story abroad if it were +known there had been any difficulty in that point among ourselves. To +conclude, Wilks had the part." + +Verily, Oldfield was a gentlewoman. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +"GRIEF A LA MODE" + + +"UNDERTAKER [_To his men_]. Well, come you that are to be mourners in +this house, put on your sad looks, and walk by me that I may sort you. +Ha, you! a little more upon the dismal; [_forming their countenances_] +this fellow has a good mortal look--place him near the corpse: that +wainscot face must be o' top of the stairs; that fellow's almost in a +fright (that looks as if he were full of some strange misery) at the +entrance to the hall. So--but I'll fix you all myself. Let's have no +laughing now on any provocation. [_Makes faces_.] Look yonder, that +hale, well-looking puppy! You ungrateful scoundrel, did not I pity +you, take you out of a great man's service, and shew you the pleasure +of receiving wages? Did not I give you ten, then fifteen, now twenty +shillings a week, to be sorrowful? and the more I give you, I think, +the gladder you are. + +"_Enter a_ BOY. + +"BOY. Sir, the grave-digger of St. Timothy's in the Fields would speak +with you. + +"UNDERTAKER. Let him come in. + +"_Enter_ GRAVE-DIGGER. + +"GRAVE-DIGGER. I carried home to your house the shroud the gentleman +was buried in last night; I could not get his ring off very easilly, +therefore I brought you the finger and all; and, sir, the sexton gives +his service to you, and desires to know whether you'd have any bodies +removed or not: if not, he'll let them be in their graves a week +longer. + +"UNDERTAKER. Give him my service; I can't tell readilly: but our +friend, Dr. Passeport, with the powder, has promised me six or seven +funerals this week." + + * * * * * + +These extracts are not from the manuscript of a modern +farce-comedy,[A] but belong to Steele's play of "The Funeral, or Grief +a la Mode." If they have about them all the air of _fin-de-siecle_ +wit, so much the more eloquently do they testify to the freshness +of Dick's satire. Freshness, satire, and death! Surely the three +ingredients seem unmixable; yet when poured into the crucible of +Steele's genius they resulted in a crystal that sparkled delightfully +amid the lights of a theatre--a crystal which might still shed +brilliancy if some enterprising manager would exhibit it to a jaded +public. + +[Footnote A: In "A Milk White Flag," a good specimen of "up-to-date" +farce, Mr. Hoyt dallies entertainingly and discreetly with the +blithesome topics of undertakers, corpses, and widows.] + +In "The Funeral" the author impaled, with many a merciless slash of +the pen, the hypocrisy and vulgar flummery that characterised the +whole gruesome ceremony of conducting to its earthly resting-place +the body of a well-to-do sinner. For the average Englishman loved a +funeral and all its ghastly accompaniments as passionately as though +he had Irish blood in his veins, and often insisted upon investing the +burial of his friends with the mockery, rather than the sincerity, of +woe. + +Grief thus became a pleasure, and it was a pleasure, be it added, +which was not taken too sadly. (Pardon the paradox.) The spirits of +the deceased's many admirers had to be raised, and the enlivening +process was set in motion by means of numerous libations, not of +tea, but of lusty wine. When the wife of mine host of the "Crown +and Sceptre" left this world of cooking and drinking, the women who +crowded to the good lady's funeral had to drown their sorrows in a tun +of red port,[A] and it is evident that at the burial of men the grief +of the mourners required an equal amount of quenching. Indeed, the +most absurd expenditures and preparations were made for what should be +the simplest of ceremonies, and the result oftentimes proved garish +in the extreme. As an example of the display in this direction, John +Ashton quotes from the _Daily Courant_ a report of the obsequies of +Sir William Pritchard, sometime Lord Mayor of London. After a +vast deal of pomp wasted in St. Albans and other places upon the +unappreciative and inanimate Pritchard, the remains reached the +country seat of the deceased, in the county of Buckingham. "Where, +after the body had been set out, with all ceremony befitting his +degree, for near two hours, 'twas carried to the church adjacent in +this order, viz., 2 conductors with long staves, 6 men in long cloaks +two and two, the standard, 18 men in cloaks as before, servants to +the deceas'd two and two, divines, the minister of the parish and the +preacher, the helm and crest, sword and target, gauntlets and spurs, +born by an officer of Arms, both in their rich coats of Her Majesty's +Arms enbroider'd; the body, between 6 persons of the Arms of Christ's +Hospital, St. Bartholomew's, Merchant Taylors Company, City of +London, empaled coat and single coat; the chief mourner and his four +assistants, followed by the relations of the defunct, &c."[B] In this +aggregation of grandeur the mere bagatelle in the shape of a corpse +seems almost completely overshadowed, and it is thus comforting to +reflect that the latter finally had interment in a "handsome large +vault, in the isle on the north side of the church, betwixt 7 and 8 of +the clock that evening." The dear departed, or grief for his memory, +frequently played but too small a role in all these trappings of +despondency, and the insignificance of the deceased might only be +likened to the secondary position of a man at his own wedding. It was +all fuss and mortuary feathers, mourning rings and mulled wine in the +one case, just as in the other it is entirely a show of bride and +blushes, flounces and femininity. [Footnote A: In writing of the +customs connected with old-time English funerals, Misson says: "The +relations and chief mourners are in a chamber apart, with their more +intimate friends; and the rest of the guests are dispersed in several +rooms about the house. When they are ready to set out, they nail +up the coffin, and a servant presents the company with sprigs of +rosemary: Every one takes a sprig and carries it in his hand till the +body is put into the grave, at which time they all throw their sprigs +in after it. Before they set out, and after they return, it is usual +to present the guests with something to drink, either red or white +wine, boil'd with sugar and cinnamon, or some such liquor. Butler, the +keeper of a tavern, told me there was a tun of red port drank at his +wife's burial, besides mull'd white wine. Note, no men ever go to +women's burials, nor the women to the men's; so that there were none +but women at the drinking of Butler's wine. Such women in England will +hold it out with the men, when they have a bottle before them, as well +as upon t'other occasion, and tattle infinitely better than they."] + +[Footnote B: The will of Benjamin Dod, a Roman Catholic citizen of +London (died 1714) runs in part as follows: "I desire four and twenty +persons to be at my burial ... to every of which four and twenty +persons ... I give a pair of white gloves, a ring of ten shillings +value, a bottle of wine at my funeral, and half a crown to be spent +at their return that night; to drink my soul's health, then on her +Journey for Purification in order to Eternal Rest. I appoint the room, +where my corpse shall lie, to be hung with black, and four and twenty +wax candles to be burning; on my coffin to be affixed a cross and this +inscription, _Jesus Hominum Salvator_. I also appoint my corpse to be +carried in a herse drawn with six white horses, with white feathers, +and followed by six coaches, with six horses to each coach, to carry +the four and twenty persons.... Item, I give to forty of my particular +acquaintance, not at my funeral, to every one of them a gold ring of +ten shillings value.... As for mourning, I leave that to my executors +hereafter nam'd; and I do not desire them to give any to whom I +shall leave a legacy.... I will have no Presbyterian, Moderate Low +Churchmen, or Occasional Conformists, to be at or have anything to do +with my funeral. I die in the Faith of the True Catholic Church. I +desire to have a tomb stone over me, with a Latin inscription, and +a lamp, or six wax candles, to burn seven days and nights +thereon."--_Vide_ ASHTON.] + +Was it any wonder that when Dick Steele, aetat twenty-six, an officer +of Fusiliers, and a merry vagabond, wanted to redeem his reputation by +writing a rollicking comedy, his thoughts turned to the satirising of +the British undertaker? For the young man must prove to the town that +he was not the hypocrite several of his kind friends had dubbed him. +The fact was, that he had been virtuous enough to write a pious work +entitled, "The Christian Hero," which he afterwards published, but +as he had not grown sufficiently master of himself to live up to its +golden precepts (nay, rather did he continue to spend his evenings in +the taverns), the author came in for many a taunt and sneer. Why did +he not practice what he preached? was the sarcastic query of his +intimates. + +Yet there was no thought of cant in what the soldier had done. His +design in issuing the "Christian Hero" was, as he explained in after +years, "principally to fix upon his own mind a strong impression of +virtue and religion, in opposition to a stronger propensity towards +unwarrantable pleasures." This secret admiration was too weak; he +therefore printed the book with his name, in hopes that a standing +testimony against himself, and the eyes of the world (that is to say, +of his acquaintances) upon him in a new light, would make him ashamed +of understanding and seeming to feel what was virtuous, and living so +contrary to life. + +But the man was weak where the author was willing, and thus gay +Richard went on "living so contrary a life" with true Celtic +perversity, and made of himself anything but a Christian Hero. +Rather was he a jolly Pagan, with a passion for his wine and his +coffee-house, and a kindly, merry word even for those who twitted him +upon his inconsistency. It was plain, therefore, that he must be some +other sort of hero, and so he evolved the brilliant satire of "The +Funeral," to "enliven his character, and repel the sarcasms of those +who abused him for his declarations relative to religion." + +[Illustration: SIR RICHARD STEELE + +By Sir GODFREY KNELLER] + +In the twinkling of an eye Steele became the spoiled darling of the +day. The comedy, which was produced at Drury Lane in 1702, was the +talk of the enthusiastic town, and the playwright arose from +his beer-mugs, his wine-flagons, and his contemplation of ideal +Christianity, to find himself famous. He had opened a new vein of +satire, and a vein moreover which upheld virtue and laughed to scorn +hypocrisy and vice. That was a moral which the dramatists of his epoch +seldom taught.[A] And so the people crowded to the theatre, applauded +the sentiment of the play, guffawed at the keen wit of the dialogue, +and swore that this young rascal Steele was the prince of bright +fellows. Then they went home--and revelled, as before, in the funerals +of their friends. + +[Footnote A: The "Funeral" is the merriest and most perfect of +Steele's comedies. The characters are strongly marked, the wit genial, +and not indecent. Steele was among the first who set about reforming +the licentiousness of the old comedy. His satire in the "Funeral" is +not against virtue, but vice and silliness.--DR. DORAN.] + +What of this remarkable comedy? Its story turned upon the marriage of +the elderly Lord Brumpton to a designing young minx who estranges the +nobleman from his son, Lord Hardy, the gentlemanly, poverty-stricken +leading man of the piece. When Brumpton has a cataleptic fit, and is +apparently dead as a doornail, the spouse confides his body to the +undertaker with feelings of serene pleasure. But let the lines of the +play, or a portion thereof, unfold the situation. + +The scene is at Lord Brumpton's house; the nobleman has just been +pronounced defunct, and Sable, the undertaker, has arrived. The +latter, who is being bantered by two of the characters, Mr. Campley +and Cabinet, is evidently a bit of a philosopher, albeit an uncanny +one, for he says: + + * * * * * + +"There are very few in the whole world that live to themselves, but +sacrifice their bosom-bliss to enjoy a vain show and appearance of +prosperity in the eyes of others; and there is often nothing more +inwardly distressed than a young bride in her glittering retinue, or +deeply joyful than a young widow in her weeds and black train; of both +which the lady of this house may be an instance, for she has been the +one, and is, I'll be sworn, the other. + +"CABINET. You talk, Mr. Sable, most learnedly. + +"SABLE. I have the deepest learning, sir, experience; remember your +widow cousin, that married last month. + +"CABINET. Ay, but how you'd you imagine she was in all that grief +an hypocrite! Could all those shrieks, those swoonings, that rising +falling bosom, be constrained? You're uncharitable, Sable, to believe +it. What colour, what reason had you for it? + +"SABLE. First, Sir, her carriage in her concerns with me, for I never +yet could meet with a sorrowful relict but was herself enough to +make a hard bargain with me. Yet I must confess they have frequent +interruptions of grief and sorrow when they read my bill; but as for +her, nothing she resolv'd, that look'd bright or joyous, should +after her love's death approach her. All her servants that were not +coal-black must turn out; a fair complexion made her eyes and heart +ake, she'd none but downright jet, and to exceed all example, she +hir'd my mourning furniture by the year, and in case of my mortality, +ty'd my son to the same article; so in six weeks time ran away with a +young fellow." + + * * * * * + +And so on (with a cynicism of which, of course, no modern "funeral +director" would be guilty--out loud), until the undertaker's men come +on the scene. + + * * * * * + +"Where in the name of goodness have you all been?" asks SABLE. "Have +you brought the sawdust and tar for embalming? Have you the hangings +and the sixpenny nails, and my lord's coat of arms?" + +"SERVANT. Yes, sir, and had come sooner, but I went to the herald's +for a coat for Alderman Gathergrease that died last night--he has +promised to invent one against to-morrow." + +"SABLE. Ah! pox take some of our cits, the first thing after their +death is to take care of their birth--let him bear a pair of +stockings, he is the first of his family that ever wore one.... And +you, Mr. Blockhead, I warrant you have not call'd at Mr. Pestle's the +apothecary: will that fellow never pay me? I stand bound for all the +poison in that starving murderer's shop: he serves me just as Dr. +Quibus did, who promised to write a treatise against water-gruel, a +healthy slop that has done me more injury than all the Faculty: look +you now, you are all upon the sneer, let me have none but downright +stupid countenances. I've a good mind to turn you all off, and take +people out of the playhouse; but hang them, they are as ignorant of +their parts as you are of yours.... Ye stupid rogues, whom I have +picked out of the rubbish of mankind, and fed for your eminent +worthlessness, attend, and know that I speak you this moment stiff and +immutable to all sense of noise, mirth or laughter. [_Makes mouths at +them as they pass by him to bring them to a constant countenance_.] +So, they are pretty well--pretty well." + +[_Exit_. + + * * * * * + +When the stage is clear Lord Brumpton and his servant Trusty enter. +The former has wakened from his cataleptic trance, as the faithful +Trusty watched beside him, and is horrified to learn of Lady +Brumpton's lack of grief. But hush; he will conceal himself, for +here comes my lady, accompanied by her woman and confidant, Mistress +Tattleaid. + + * * * * * + +"_Enter_ WIDOW _and_ TATTLEAID, _meeting and running to each other_. + +"WIDOW. Oh, Tattleaid, his and our hour has come! + +"TAT. I always said by his church yard cough, you'd bury him, and +still you were impatient. + +"WIDOW. Nay, thou hast ever been my comfort, my confident, my friend, +and my servant; and now I'll reward thy pains; for tho' I scorn the +whole sex of fellows I'll give them hopes for thy sake; every smile, +every frown, every gesture, humour, caprice and whimsy of mine shall +be gold to thee, girl; thou shalt feel all the sweets and wealth of +being a fine rich widow's woman. Oh! how my head runs my first year +out, and jumps to all the joys of widowhood! If thirteen months hence +a friend should haul one to a play one has a mind to see,[A] what +pleasure t'will be when my Lady Brumpton's footman called (who kept +a place for that very purpose) to make a sudden insurrection of fine +wigs in the pit and side-boxes. Then, with a pretty sorrow in one's +face, and a willing blush for being stared at, one ventures to look +round, and bow to one of one's own quality. Thus [_very directly_] to +a snug pretending fellow of no fortune. Thus [_as scarce seeing him_] +to one that writes lampoons. Thus [_fearfully_] to one who really +loves. Thus [_looking down_] to one woman-acquaintance, from box to +box, thus [_with looks differently familiar_], and when one has done +one's part, observe the actors do theirs, but with my mind fixed not +on those I look at, but those that look at me. Then the serenades--the +lovers! [A query--if the theatres were patronised only by those who +looked solely at the stage, what would be the size of the audiences?] + +[Footnote A: A well-regulated widow kept herself at home for six weeks +after the death of her husband, and denied herself the theatre and +other public amusements for a twelvemonth.] + +"TAT. Oh, madam, you make my heart bound within me: I'll warrant you, +madam, I'll manage them all; and indeed, madam, the men are really +very silly creatures, 'tis no such hard matter--they rulers! they +governors! I warrant you indeed. + +"WIDOW. Ay, Tattleaid, they imagine themselves mighty things, but +government founded on force only, is a brutal power--we rule them by +their affections, which blinds them into belief that they rule us, or +at least are in the government with us. But in this nation our power +is absolute; thus, thus, we sway--[_playing her fan_]. A fan is both +the standard and the flag of England. I laugh to see men go on our +errands, strut in great offices, live in cares, hazards and scandals, +to come home and be fools to us in brags of their dispatches, +negotiations, and their wisdoms--as my good dear deceas'd use to +entertain me; which I, to relieve myself from, would lisp some silly +request, pat him on the face. He shakes his head at my pretty folly, +calls me simpleton; gives me a jewel, then goes to bed so wise, so +satisfied, and so deceived." + + * * * * * + +This pleasant conversation Lord Brumpton overhears, as he does also +the inmost secrets of his lawyer, Puzzle. The latter gentleman, who +has studied hard to cheat his good-natured employer, and succeeded, is +a daringly drawn satire on the pettifogging attorney of the period.[A] +Note the following words of wisdom, _apropos_ to the drawing of wills, +which Mr. Puzzle addresses to his nephew. + +[Footnote A: Of the attorney of Queen Anne's day Ward wrote: "He's an +Amphibious Monster, that partakes of two Natures, and those contrary; +He's a great Lover both of Peace and Enmity; and has no sooner set +People together by the Ears, but is Soliciting the Law to make an end +of the Difference. His Learning is commonly as little as his Honesty; +and his Conscience much larger than his Green Bag. Catch him in what +Company soever, you will always hear him stating of Cases, or telling +what notice my Lord Chancellor took of him, when he beg'd leave to +supply the deficiency of his Counsel. He always talks with as great +assurance as if he understood what he only pretends to know: And +always wears a Band, and in that lies his Gravity and Wisdom. He +concerns himself with no Justice but the Justice of a Cause: and for +making an unconscionable Bill he outdoes a Taylor."] + +"PUZZLE. As for legacies, they are good or not, as I please; for let +me tell you, a man must take pen, ink and paper, sit down by an old +fellow, and pretend to take directions, but a true lawyer never makes +any man's will but his own; and as the priest of old among us got near +the dying man, and gave all to the Church, so now the lawyer gives all +to the law. + +"CLERK. Ay, sir, but priests then cheated the nation by doing their +offices in an unknown language. + +"PUZZLE. True, but ours is a way much surer; for we cheat in no +language at all, but loll in our own coaches, eloquent in gibberish, +and learned in jingle. Pull out the parchment [_referring to the will +of_ LORD BRUMPTON], there's the deed; I made it as long as I could. +Well, I hope to see the day when the indenture shall be the exact +measure of the land that passes by it; for 'tis a discouragement to +the gown, that every ignorant rogue of an heir should in a word or +two understand his father's meaning, and hold ten acres of land by +half-an-acre of parchment. Nay, I hope to see the time when that there +is indeed some progress made in, shall be wholly affected; and by the +improvement of the noble art of tautology, every Inn in Holborn an Inn +of Court. Let others think of logic, rhetoric, and I know not what +impertinence, but mind thou tautology. What's the first excellence in +a lawyer? Tautology. What's the second? Tautology. What's the third? +Tautology; as an old pleader said of action." + + * * * * * + +Who shall say that the tautological sentiments of Mr. Puzzle are not +still inculcated? Nay, the whole play furnishes a capital instance of +the truism that the world changes but little, and, furthermore, that +the mould of nigh two centuries cannot spoil the wit of sparkling +Steele. Ah, Dick! Dick! you may have been a sorry dog, with your +toasts and your taverns, yet 'tis a thousand pities that a few +dramatists of to-day cannot drink inspiration from the same cups. + +To continue our cheerful journey with this unusual "Funeral," we soon +find ourselves introduced to Lord Hardy, the unjustly discarded son of +Brumpton. Hardy is a high-spirited, honest man of quality, a trifle +out at elbows just now, owing to the stoppage of financial supplies +from the paternal mansion. His straits are oft severe, and it is +fortunate that he has in Trim a faithful servant who knows so well how +to keep the duns at bay. "Why, friend, says I [Trim is describing to +Hardy his method of dealing with his lordship's creditors], how often +must I tell you my lord is not stirring. His lordship has not slept +well, you must come some other time; your lordship will send for him +when you are at leisure to look upon money affairs; or if they are so +saucy, so impertinent as to press a man of your quality for their +own, there are canes, there's Bridewel, there's the stocks for your +ordinary tradesmen; but to an haughty, thriving Covent Garden mercer, +silk or laceman, your lordship gives your most humble service to him, +hopes his wife is well; you have letters to write, or you would see +him yourself, but you desire he would be with you punctually on such +a day, that is to say, the day after you are gone out of town, Which +shows very plainly that Trim could have earned large wages had he +lived in the nineteenth century. These 'Palmy Days' are not long +enough, however, to permit the introduction of all the characters, nor +the outlining of the entire story, with its brisk love-interest. But +this bit of dialogue, which occurs after Sable has discovered the +much-alive Lord Brumpton, is too good to be ignored: + +"SABLE. Why, my lord, you can't in conscience put me off so; I must do +according to my orders, cut you up, and embalm you, except you'll come +down a little deeper than you talk of; you don't consider the charges +I have been at already. + +"LORD BRUMPTON. Charges! for what? + +"SABLE. First, twenty guineas to my lady's woman for notice of your +death (a fee I've before now known the widow herself go halves in), +but no matter for that--in the next place, ten pounds for watching you +all your long fit of sickness last winter-- + +"LORD BRUMPTON. Watching me? Why I had none but my own servants by +turns! + +"SABLE. I mean attending to give notice of your death. I had all your +long fit of sickness, last winter, at half a crown a day, a fellow +waiting at your gate to bring me intelligence, but you unfortunately +recovered, and I lost all my obliging pains for your service. + +"LORD BRUMPTON. Ha! ha! ha! Sable, thou'rt a very impudent fellow. Half +a crown a day to attend my decease, and dost thou reckon it to me?" + +"SABLE.... I have a book at home, which I call my doomsday-book, where +I have every man of quality's age and distemper in town, and know +when you should drop. Nay, my lord, if you had reflected upon your +mortality half so much as poor I have for you, you would not desire to +return to life thus--in short, I cannot keep this a secret, under the +whole money I am to have for burying you." + + * * * * * + +Of course Lady Brumpton is discomfited and disgraced at the end of +the play, and, of course, Lord Brumpton is reconciled to his son--for +Steele took care that virtue should be rewarded and the moral code +otherwise preserved. As to her ladyship, who has proved a very +entertaining sort of villain, we shall take leave of her in one of the +best scenes of the comedy: + +"WIDOW. _[Reading the names of the visitors who have called to leave +their condolences]_ Mrs. Frances and Mrs. Winnifred Glebe, who are +they?" + +"TATTLEAID. They are the country great fortunes, have been out of town +this whole year; they are those whom your ladyship said upon being +very well-born took upon them to be very ill-bred." + +"WIDOW. Did I say so? Really I think it was apt enough; now I remember +them. Lady Wrinkle--oh, that smug old woman! there is no enduring +her affectation of youth; but I plague her; I always ask whether her +daughter in Wiltshire has a grandchild yet or not. Lady Worth--I can't +bear her company; [_aside_] she has so much of that virtue in her +heart which I have in mouth only. Mrs. After-day--Oh, that's she that +was the great beauty, the mighty toast about town, that's just come +out of the small-pox; she is horribly pitted they say; I long to see +her, and plague her with my condolence.... But you are sure these +other ladies suspect not in the least that I know of their coming? + +"TAT. No, dear madam, they are to ask for me. + +"WIDOW. I hear a coach. [_Exit_ TATTLEAID.] I have now an exquisite +pleasure in the thought of surpassing my Lady Sly, who pretends to +have out-grieved the whole town for her husband. They are certainly +coming. Oh, no! here let me--thus let me sit and think. [_Widow on +her couch; while she is raving, as to herself_, TATTLEAID _softly +introduces the ladies_.] Wretched, disconsolate, as I am!... Alas! +alas! Oh! oh! I swoon! I expire! [_Faints_. + +"SECOND LADY. Pray, Mrs. Tattleaid, bring something that is cordial to +her. [_Exit_ TATTLEAID. + +"THIRD LADY. Indeed, madam, you should have patience; his lordship was +old. To die is but going before in a journey we must all take. + +_Enter_ TATTLEAID, _loaded with bottles_; THIRD LADY _takes a bottle +from her and drinks_. + +"FOURTH LADY. Lord, how my Lady Fleer drinks! I have heard, indeed, +but never could believe it of her. [_Drinks also_. + +"FIRST LADY. [_Whispers_.] But, madam, don't you hear what the town +says of the jilt, Flirt, the men liked so much in the Park? Hark +ye--was seen with him in a hackney coach. + +"SECOND LADY. Impudent flirt, to be found out! + +"THIRD LADY. But I speak it only to you. + +"FOURTH LADY. [_Whispers next woman_.] Nor I, but to no one. + +"FIFTH LADY. [_Whispers the_ WIDOW.] I can't believe it; nay, I always +thought it, madam. + +"WIDOW. Sure, 'tis impossible the demure, prim thing. Sure all the +world is hypocrisy Well, I thank my stars, whatsoever sufferings I +have, I have none in reputation. I wonder at the men; I could never +think her handsome. She has really a good shape and complexion but no +mein; and no woman has the use of her beauty without mein. Her charms +are dumb, they want utterance. But whither does distraction lead me to +talk of charms? + +"FIRST LADY. Charms, a chit's, a girl's charms! Come, let us widows be +true to ourselves, keep our countenances and our characters, and a fig +for the maids. + +"SECOND LADY. Ay, since they will set up for our knowledge, why should +not we for their ignorance? + +"THIRD LADY. But, madam, o' Sunday morning at church, I curtsied to +you and looked at a great fuss in a glaring light dress, next pew. +That strong, masculine thing is a knight's wife, pretends to all the +tenderness in the world, and would fain put the unwieldly upon us for +the soft, the languid. She has of a sudden left her dairy, and sets up +for a fine town lady; calls her maid Cisly, her woman speaks to her by +her surname of Mrs. Cherryfist, and her great foot-boy of nineteen, +big enough for a trooper, is stripped into a laced coat, now Mr. Page +forsooth. + +"FOURTH LADY. Oh, I have seen her. Well, I heartily pity some people +for their wealth; they might have been unknown else--you would die, +madam, to see her and her equipage: I thought her horses were ashamed +of their finery; they dragged on, as if they were all at plough, and +a great bashful-look'd booby behind grasp'd the coach, as if he had +never held one. + +"FIFTH LADY. Alas! some people think there is nothing but being fine +to be genteel; but the high prance of the horses, and the brisk +insolence of the servants in an equipage of quality are inimitable. + +"FIRST LADY. Now you talk of an equipage, I envy this lady the beauty +she will appear in a mourning coach, it will so become her complexion; +I confess I myself mourned for two years for no other reason. Take up +that hood there. Oh, that fair face with a veil! [_They take up her +hood_. + +"WIDOW. Fie, fie, ladies. But I have been told, indeed, black does +become-- + +"SECOND LADY. Well, I'll take the liberty to speak it, there is young +Nutbrain has long had (I'll be sworn) a passion for this lady; but +I'll tell you one thing I fear she'll dislike, that is, he is younger +than she is. + +"THIRD LADY. No, that's no exception; but I'll tell you one, he is +younger than his brother. + +"WIDOW. Talk not of such affairs. Who could love such an unhappy +relict as I am? But, dear madam, what grounds have you for that idle +story? + +"FOURTH LADY. Why he toasts you and trembles where you are spoke of. +It must be a match. + +"WIDOW. Nay, nay, you rally, you rally; but I know you mean it kindly. + +"FIRST LADY. I swear we do. + +[TATTLEAID _whispers the_ WIDOW. + +"WIDOW. But I must beseech you, ladies, since you have been so +compassionate as to visit and accompany my sorrow, to give me the only +comfort I can now know, to see my friends cheerful, and to honour an +entertainment Tattleaid has prepared within for you. If I can find +strength enough I'll attend you; but I wish you would excuse me, for +I have no relish of food or joy, but will try to get a bit down in my +own chamber. + +"FIRST LADY. There is no pleasure without you. + +"WIDOW. But, madam, I must beg of your ladyship not to be so importune +to my fresh calamity as to mention Nutbrain any more. I am sure there +is nothing in it. In love with me, quotha!" + +[WIDOW _is led away. Exeunt_ LADIES. + +Thus runs the comedy, trippingly as the tongue of a gay _raconteur_. +Sometimes the scenes are exaggerated, sometimes the characters may be +overdrawn, but the satire is true, and the wit is of the best. +Take, for instance, the picture reproduced above. Are not its +colours--albeit bold and merciless--tinged with the redeeming hue +of naturalness? And of you, fair daughters of Eve (if any of you +condescend to read these pages), let the author ask one impertinent +little question: Is there not something in the conversation of Dick +Steele's First Lady, or his Second Lady, or all the other Ladies, +which suggests the charity and intellectuality that doth hedge in an +afternoon tea? + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE BARTON BOOTHS + + + "Sweet are the charms of her I love, + More fragrant than the damask rose; + Soft as the down of turtle-dove, + Gentle as winds when zephyr blows; + Refreshing as descending rains, + On sun-burnt climes, and thirsty plains." + +Thus rhapsodised the great Barton Booth, who could write harmless +poetry when the cares of acting did not press too hard upon him. In +this case the verses were addressed to the object of his passion, a +lady who seems to have been, at first, a trifle parsimonious in her +smiles; for, in another song intended for the same siren, the lover +asks: + + "Can then a look create a thought + Which time can ne'er remove? + Yes, foolish heart, again thou'rt caught, + Again thou bleed'st for Love. + + "She sees the conquest of her eyes, + Nor heals the wounds she gave; + She smiles when'er my blushes rise, + And, sighing, shuns her Slave. + + "Then, Swain, be bold! and still adore her + Still the flying fair pursue: + Love, and friendship, still implore her, + Pleading night and day for you." + +[Illustration: BARTON BOOTH] + +Who was this "flying fair" that the swain pursued with such despairing +fervour? Nance Oldfield? Nay, there was no romance there, for while +Booth could make the most exquisite stage love to the actress, he +never carried that love beyond the mimic world. Rather was it the +lovely Mistress Santlow, that dancing bit of sunshine, who turned the +heads of many an amorous spectator, and had enough of the temptress +about her to lead a mighty warrior from the path of domestic +constancy, and bring a Secretary of State almost to the verge of +matrimony.[A] She seemed the apotheosis of grace, did this merry, +moving Hester, and when she forsook the art she so delightfully +adorned, and took to the "legitimate," there were not a few among her +admirers who regretted the change. "They mourned," says Dr. Doran, "as +if Terpsichore herself had been on earth to charm mankind, and had +gone never to return. They remembered, longed for, and now longed in +vain for that sight which used to set a whole audience half distraught +with delight, when in the very ecstacy of her dance, Santlow contrived +to loosen her clustering auburn hair, and letting it fall about such +a neck and shoulders as Praxiteles could more readily imagine than +imitate, danced on, the locks flying in the air, and half-a-dozen +hearts at the end of every one of them." + +[Footnote A: The Duke of Marlborough and Secretary Craggs +respectively.] + +At the end of one of those locks was the throbbing heart of Barton +Booth, which he had completely lost in watching the auburn hair and +the poetic movements of the _coryphee:_ + + "But now the flying fingers strike the lyre, + The sprightly notes the nymph inspire. + She whirls around! she bounds! she springs! + As if Jove's messenger had lent her wings. + + "Such were her lovely limbs, so flushed her charming face + So round her neck! her eyes so fair! + So rose her swelling chest! so flow'd her amber hair! + While her swift feet outstript the wind, + And left the enamor'd God of Day behind." + +Certes, Booth was in love when he wrote this eulogy. + +But however sprightly and deftly did this charmer pirouette, she could +not deny herself the luxury of appearing as a regular actress. Her +first venture in this direction was as the Eunuch of "Valentinian," +wherein she donned boy's attire, and was much more successful in +masculine garb than have been not a few better artists. From this +part to that of Dorcas Zeal in Shadwell's play, "The Fair Quaker of +Deal,"[A] was but a step, and a step, be it said, which for the moment +consoled the public for her desertion from the ballet. According to +Cibber, Santlow was the happiest incident in the fortune of the play, +and the Laureate tells us that she was "then in the full bloom of what +beauty she might pretend to."[B] He adds that "before this she had +only been admired as the most excellent dancer, which perhaps might +not a little contribute to the favourable reception she now met with +as an actress in this character which so happily suited her figure and +capacity: the gentle softness of her voice, the composed innocence +of her aspect, the modesty of her dress, the reserv'd deceny of her +gesture, and the simplicity of the sentiments that naturally fell from +her, made her seem the amiable maid she represented. In a word, not +the enthusiastick Maid of Orleans was more serviceable of old to the +French army when the English had distressed them, than this fair +Quaker was at the head of that dramatick attempt upon which the +support of their weak society depended." + +[Footnote A: Produced at Drury Lane in February, 1710.] + +[Footnote B: It might appear from this remark of Colley's that the +Santlow was not over handsome. Yet if a picture taken from life does +not belie her the dancer was most fair to look upon.] + +This "weak society" was the new company recruited by William Collier +for Drury Lane Theatre, and wherein could be found, in addition to the +light-limbed Hester, such players as her adoring swain, Barton Booth, +Theophilus Keen, George Powell, Francis Leigh, Mrs. Bradshaw and Mrs. +Knight. Colley was at that time (1710) in opposition to Drury, his +interest lying with the Hay market management, and it is very evident +that the success of the "Fair Quaker"--a success made in face of the +counter attraction furnished by the long trial of Dr. Sacheverel--went +sorely against the grain with him.[A] The fact was that things at the +Hay market were not flourishing, and the prosperity enjoyed by the +Drury Lane comedy--and the Sacheverel show--seemed tantalising to +bear. + +[Footnote A: Shadwell evidently had Cibber in mind when he wrote in +the preface to the "Fair Quaker of Deal": "This play was written +about three years since, and put into the hands of a famous comedian +belonging to the Haymarket Playhouse, who took care to beat down the +value of it so much as to offer the author to alter it fit to appear +on the stage, on condition he might have half the profits of the third +day; that is as much as to say, that it may pass for one of his, +according to custom. The author not agreeing to this reasonable +proposal, it lay in his hands till the beginning of this winter, when +Mr. Booth read it, and liked it, and persuaded the author that, with a +little alteration, it would please the town."] + +Even in after years Colley grew bitter in thinking of the "Fair +Quaker," and could not help indulging in a dig at its expense when +he came to write the "Apology." He likewise paid his satirical +compliments to the new-fangled Italian opera which was given at the +Haymarket during the season of 1709-10, on the days when the regular +dramatic company did not appear. The opera had already proved a +drawing attraction, but at the time here mentioned the popular +interest in the performances had fallen off, and the dear and ever +fickle public, of high and low degree, prefered either Drury Lane or +the trial of Sacheverel to the artistic delights of music and the +drama at the rival house. And so Cibber plaintively sighs. + +"The truth is, that this kind of entertainment [opera] being so +entirely sensual, it had no possibility of getting the better of our +reason but by its novelty; and that novelty could never be supported +but by an annual change of the best voices, which, like the finest +flowers, bloom but for a season, and when that is over are only dead +nosegays. From this natural cause we have seen within these two years +even Farinelli singing to an audience of five and thirty pounds, and +yet, if common fame may be credited, the same voice, so neglected in +one country, has in another had charms sufficient to make that crown +sit easy on the head of a Monarch, which the jealousy of politicians +(who had their views in his keeping it) fear'd, without some such +extraordinary amusement, his Satiety of Empire might tempt him a +second time to resign."[A] + +[Footnote A: The monarch alluded to was evidently Victor Amadeus, King +of Sardinia. The tenor Farinelli (whose real name was Carlo Broschi) +was born in the dukedom of Modena in 1705, and died 1782.] + +That Cibber knew something of the wrangles which inevitably follow in +the wake of an operatic troupe may be seen from the next paragraph: + +"There is, too, in the very species of an Italian singer such an +innate, fantastical pride and caprice, that the government of them +(here at least) is almost impracticable. This distemper, as we were +not sufficiently warn'd or apprized of, threw our musical affairs into +perplexities we knew not easily how to get out of. There is scarce +a sensible auditor in the Kingdom that has not since that time had +occasion to laugh at the several instances of it. But what is still +more ridiculous, these costly canary birds have sometimes infested the +whole body of our dignified lovers of musick with the same childish +animosities." + +It was merely an illustration of the melancholy fact that the heavenly +maid of music is too often attended by the handmaiden of discord. But +to continue: + +"Ladies have been known," says Colley, "to decline their visits upon +account of their being of a different musical party. Caesar and Pompey +made not a warmer division in the Roman Republick than those heroines, +their country women, the Faustina and Cuzzoni, blew up in our +commonwealth of academical musick by their implacable pretentions to +superiority.[A] And while this greatness of soul is their unalterable +virtue, it will never be practicable to make two capital singers of +the same sex do as they should do in one opera at the same time! No, +tho' England were to double the sums it has already thrown after them. +For even in their own country, where an extraordinary occasion has +called a greater number of their best to sing together, the mischief +they have made has been proportionable; an instance of which, if I am +rightly informed, happen'd at Parma, where upon the celebration of +the marriage of that Duke, a collection was made of the most eminent +voices that expence or interest could purchase, to give as complete an +opera as the whole vocal power of Italy could form. + +[Footnote A: Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni Hasse, whose +famous rivalry in 1726 and 1727 is here referred to, were singers +of remarkable powers. Cuzzoni's voice was a soprano, her rival's a +mezzo-soprana, and while the latter excelled in brilliant execution, +the former was supreme in pathetic expression. Dr. Burney("History of +Music," iv. 319) quotes from M. Quanta the statement that so keen was +their supporter's party spirit, that when one party began to applaude +their favourite, the other party hissed!--R.W. LOWE, "Notes to the +Apology."] + +"But when it came to the proof of this musical project, behold! what +woful work they made of it! every performer would be a Caesar or +Nothing; their several pretentions to preference were not to be +limited within the laws of harmony; they would all choose their own +songs, but not more to set off themselves than to oppose or deprive +another of an occasion to shine. Yet any one would sing a bad song, +provided nobody else had a good one, till at last they were thrown +together like so many feather'd warriors, for a battle-royal in a +cock-pit, where every one was oblig'd to kill another to save himself! +What pity it was these froward misses and masters of musick had not +been engag'd to entertain the court of some King of Morocco, that +could have known a good opera from a bad one! With how much ease would +such a director have brought them to better order? But alas! as it has +been said of greater things, + + "'Suis et ipsa Roma viribus ruit.' + +"Imperial Rome fell by the too great strength of its own citizens! So +fell this mighty opera, ruin'd by the too great excellency of its +singers! For, upon the whole, it proved to be as barbarously bad as if +Malice itself had composed it." + +It was a pity, no doubt, that the light of opera shone but dimly at +the Haymarket, yet the ill wind which almost extinguished that light +blew a blessing towards the nimble Santlow. For the dear creature +prospered exceeding well as Dorcas Zeal; the heart of the public waxed +warm toward the ex-dancer, and so did the cardiac organ of Barton +Booth. A few years later Booth married the charmer, and she, having +become virtuous and prim, made the remainder of his life a bed of +domestic roses. + +And now for the brief story of Booth's dignified career. Barton came +of good English stock, and his father, with a true British desire to +rule the destinies of his family, mapped out a clerical life for the +boy. But the latter had no thought of the pulpit, and from the time +that he acted in the "Andria" of Terence, at Westminster School, his +hope was all for the stage. 'Tis very easy to applaud that hope now; +perhaps his relations looked upon it as a temptation offered by the +Evil One. When he reached the mature age of seventeen, and had orders +to begin his university training, what does the youth do but run away +from home, and, taking the theatrical bull by the horns, appear on the +Dublin boards. + +"He first apply'd to Mr. Betterton, then to Mr. Smith, two celebrated +actors," says Chetwood, "but they decently refused him for fear of the +resentment of his family. But this did not prevent his pursuing the +point in view; therefore he resolv'd for Ireland, and safely arrived +in June 1698. His first rudiments Mr. Ashbury[A] taught him, and his +first appearance was in the part of Oroonoko, where he acquitted +himself so well to a crowded audience, that Mr. Ashbury rewarded him +with a present of five guineas, which was the more acceptable as his +last shilling was reduced to brass (as he inform'd me). But an odd +accident fell out upon this occasion. It being very warm weather, in +his last scene of the play, as he waited to go on, he inadvertently +wiped his face, that, when he enter'd, he had the appearance of a +chimney-sweeper (his own words). At his entrance he was surprised at +the variety of noises he heard in the audience (for he knew not what +he had done), that a little confounded him, till he received an +extraordinary clap of applause, which settled his mind. The play was +desir'd for the next night of acting, when an actress fitted a crape +to his face, with an opening proper for the mouth, and shap'd in form +for the nose; but, in the first scene, one part of the crape slip'd +off. 'And zounds!' said he (he was a little apt to swear), 'I look'd +like a magpie. When I came off, they lamp-black'd me for the rest of +the night, that I was flayed before it could be got off again.'"[B] + +[Footnote A: Joseph Ashbury, Master of the Revels, in Ireland, actor, +and manager of the theatre in Dublin.] + +[Footnote B: Chetwood adds in a footnote: "The composition for +blackening the face are ivory-black and pomatum, which is, with some +pains, clean'd with fresh butter." "Oroonoko" was what we would now +call a "black face" part.] + +But Booth was too much in earnest to be daunted by anything so +trifling as the misplacing of a mask. He studied hard, despite a +youthful liking for the jolly joys of Bacchus, and soon made for +himself an enviable position upon the Dublin stage. For the youth had +all the qualities that went toward the formation of a fine actor; he +possessed keen dramatic instinct, poetic sensibility, a beautiful +voice, a handsome person, and, above all, a dogged ambition. In after +years, when his health began to fail and the sweets of success had, +perhaps, become a trifle cloying, the tragedian often went through +a part in a perfunctory manner.[A] But those early days in Ireland +marked the sunrise of his genius--a time no less noble, in its +freshness and promise, than the later glory of the noontide--and there +was in his performance nothing but youthful ardour and devotion. + +[Footnote A: He (Booth) would play his best to a single man in the pit +whom he recognised as a playgoer, and a judge of acting; but to an +unappreciating audience he could exhibit an almost contemptuous +disinclination to exert himself. On one occasion of this sort he was +made painfully sensible of his mistake and a note was addressed to him +from the stage-box, the purport of which was to know whether he +was acting for his own diversion or in the service and for the +entertainment of the public? On another occasion, with a thin house +and a cold audience, he was languidly going through one of his usually +grandest impersonations, namely, Pyrrhus. At his very dullest scene he +started into the utmost brilliancy and effectiveness. His eye had just +previously detected in the pit a gentleman, named Stanyan, the +friend of Addison and Steele, and the correspondent of the Earl of +Manchester. Stanyan was an accomplished man and a judicious critic. +Booth played to him, with the utmost care and corresponding success. +"No, no!" he exclaimed, as he passed behind the scenes, "I will not +have it said at Button's that Barton Booth is losing his powers!"--DR. +DORAN.] + +With that ardour, only whetted by his popularity in Dublin, Barton +travelled to London (1701), and there offered respectful incense at +the shrine of Betterton. 'Twas a shrine at which the public still +worshipped; and when Roscius extended a helping hand to the kneeling +postulant, and brought him before the patrons of Lincoln's Inn Fields, +the success of Booth seemed assured. The latter never forgot the +generosity and kindly interest of his idol, and he spoke with all the +sincerity of gratitude when he once said: "When I acted the Ghost with +Betterton (as Hamlet), instead of my awing him, he terrified me. But +divinity hung round that man." Had he been of an egotistic mould +Barton might have added, that his Ghost was considered hardly less +effective than the Hamlet of the mighty Betterton. + +For a decade, or longer, Booth went on this prosperous way, gaining in +favour with the theatre-goers, and increasing his artistic resources. +During this period he married the daughter of a baronet, and she lived +for six years, but not long enough to witness his triumphs in the +"Distressed Mother" and the classic "Cato." As Chetwood well said, +"Pyrrhus in the 'Distressed Mother' placed him in the seat of Tragedy, +and Cato fixed him there." We have already read something of the +"Distressed Mother," and of the production of Addison's tragedy, and +so there is no need to linger over the episodes which caused Booth to +be acclaimed Betterton's logical successor. + +We remember, likewise, that the original Cato was admitted to a share +in the management of Drury Lane, as a result of the increased fame +accruing from his impersonation of the grand old Roman. It was an +incident, into which politics entered not a little; there were wires +to pull, and Lord Bolingbroke had his hand in the theatrical pie. "To +reward his merit," chronicles Chetwood, "he (Booth) was joined in +the patent, tho' great interest was made against him by the other +patentees, who, to prevent his soliciting his patrons at Court, +then at Windsor, gave out plays every night, where Mr. Booth had a +principal part. Notwithstanding this step, he had a chariot and six of +a nobleman's waiting for him at the end of every play, that whipt him +the twenty miles in three hours, and brought him back to the business +of the theatre the next night." + +"He told me," adds the writer, "not one nobleman in the Kingdom had so +many sets of horses at command as he had at that time, having no less +than eight; the first set carrying him to Hounslow from London, ten +miles; and the next set, ready waiting with another chariot to +carry him to Windsor." Evidently the inspired Barton, with all his +high-flown talent, had an eye for the main chance. In this respect he +resembled one greater than he--David Garrick. + +Like Garrick, too, the enterprising Booth had his Peg Woffington, in +the pretty person of Susan Mountford, a daughter of the great Mistress +Verbruggen. He never placed a wedding-ring upon a finger of this young +woman, but he gave her his protection after the death of the baronet's +daughter, and continued to do so until the fragile creature ran off +with a craven fellow named Minshull. This Minshull made away with over +L3000, the sum of Susan's savings,[A] and the erring woman, alike +false to her virtue and the destroyer of that virtue, ended her +darkening days amid the clouds of insanity. + +[Footnote A: In the year 1714, they (Booth and Susan) bought several +tickets in the State Lottery, and agreed to share equally whatever +fortune might ensue. Booth gained nothing; the lady won a prize of +5000 pounds, and kept it. His friends counselled him to claim half the +sum, but he laughingly remarked that there had never been any but +a verbal agreement on the matter; and since the result had been +fortunate for his friend, she should enjoy it all.--Dr. DORAN.] + +The picture is far prettier with Hester Santlow leaping into the +affections of the actor, and finally marrying him according to the law +of the land. She loved the great man tenderly, ministered to his wants +with a wifely devotion which would hardly suit the "New Woman," and +when he was wont to eat too much (for he had given up the flowing +bowl[A] and must cultivate some other species of gluttony), the +ex-dancer would have the dinner-table removed. + +[Footnote A: Booth told Cibber that he "had been for sometime too +frank a lover of the bottle; but having had the happiness to observe +into what contempt and distress Powel had plung'd himself by the same +vice, he was so struck with the terror of his example, that he fix'd +a resolution (which from that time to the end of his days he strictly +observed) of utterly reforming it." And Colley adds; "An uncommon act +of philosophy in a young man!"] + +Strange, is it not, that the wife who could be so full of constancy, +and all the other virtues, previously lived a notoriously loose +existence? For it had been the fate of Santlow to stand continually in +the glare of that fierce light which beats upon the stage, and +never, perhaps, did she give the town more to talk about than by her +celebrated _rencontre_ with Captain Montague. The story affords a +glimpse of the free-and-easy manners which sometimes prevailed in +theatres, and will bear the telling, ere we bid farewell to its fair +heroine. + +"About the year 1717," writes Cibber, "a young actress of a desirable +person (Santlow), sitting in an upper box at the Opera, a military +gentleman (Montague) thought this a proper opportunity to secure a +little conversation with her, the particulars of which were probably +no more worth repeating than it seems the Damoiselle then thought them +worth listening to; for, notwithstanding the fine things he said +to her, she rather chose to give the Musick the preference of her +attention. This indifference was so offensive to his high heart, +that he began to change the Tender into the Terrible, and, in short, +proceeded at last to treat her in a style too grossly insulting for +the meanest female ear to endur unresented. Upon which, being beaten +too far out of her discretion, she turn'd hastily upon him with an +angry look and a reply which seem'd to set his merit in so low a +regard, that he thought himself oblig'd in honour to take his time to +resent it. + +"This was the full extent of her crime, which his glory delay'd no +longer to punish than 'till the next time she was to appear upon the +stage. There, in one of her best parts, wherein she drew a favourable +regard and approbation from the audience, he, dispensing with the +respect which some people think due to a polite assembly, began to +interrupt her performance with such loud and various notes of mockery, +as other young men of honour in the same place had sometimes made +themselves undauntedly merry with. Thus, deaf to all murmurs or +entreaties of those about him, he pursued his point, even to throwing +near her such trash as no person can be suppos'd to carry about him +unless to use on so particular an occasion. + +"A gentlemen then behind the scenes,[A] being shock'd at his unmanly +behaviour, was warm enough to say, that no man but a fool or a bully +could be capable of insulting an audience or a woman in so monstrous a +manner. The former valiant gentleman, to whose ear the words were soon +brought by his spies, whom he had plac'd behind the scenes to observe +how the action was taken there, came immediately from the pit in a +heat, and demanded to know of the author of those words if he was the +person that spoke them? to which he calmly reply'd, that though he had +never seen him before, yet since he seem'd so earnest to be satisfy'd, +he would do him the favour to own, that indeed the words were his, and +that they would be the last words he should chuse to deny whoever they +might fall upon. + +[Footnote A: Secretary Craggs.] + +"To conclude, their dispute was ended the next morning in Hyde Park, +where the determin'd combatant who first ask'd for satisfaction was +obliged afterwards to ask his life too; whether he mended it or not, I +have not yet heard; but his antagonist in a few years afterwards died +in one of the principal posts of the Government." + +There were no more such scenes after Santlow became Mrs. Barton Booth. +Everything was respectability, and the voice of the turtle-dove +appears to have been heard in the home of the happy couple. Yea, the +husband waxed ecstatic after several years of married bliss, once more +tuned his lyre, and burst forth into verses, wherein he set forth, +among other things: + + "Happy the hour when first our souls were joined! + The social virtues and the cheerful mind + Have ever crowned our days, beguiled our pain; + Strangers to discord and her clamorous train," &c. + +The lines suggest placidity of existence, and placid, indeed, was the +married life of Booth, barring his moments of ill-health. When his +career is compared to that of certain other players, it stands out in +rather pleasant relief, by virtue of its even tenor and prosperity. It +was free from the vicissitudes which have waylaid the paths of equally +great artists, and the current of his genius ran on without a ripple, +save that of sickness. There was one direction, however, wherein Booth +found variety and excitement, and that was in the wondrous diversity +of parts which he assumed. In tragedy, his work took a wide range, +going all the way from Laertes to Othello, while he sallied forth now +and again into the field of comedy, and emerged therefrom with honour. +He did not, to be sure, distinguish himself so brilliantly as a +comedian as he did in tragic garb, yet he wooed Thalia in a genteel +way which seldom failed to please. Nay, it is chronicled that he +impersonated capon-lined Falstaff in a fashion that amused even +phlegmatic Queen Anne. But the actor of long ago thought nothing of +such catholicity in art. He often worked like a horse, that he might +later play like a god.[A] + +[Footnote A: To show the versatility of Booth it need only be +mentioned that his parts (among many not herein named) included the +Ghost, Laertes, Horatio and the Prince in "Hamlet," Dick in "The +Confederacy," Captain Worthy in the "Fair Quaker of Deal," Pyrrhus, +Cato, Young Bevil in the "Conscious Lovers," Tamerlane, Oronooko, +Jaffier, Othello, King Lear, Hotspur, Wildair, Sir Charles Easy, +Falstaff, Cassio, Macbeth, Banquo, Lennox, Henry VIII. and Cinna. Few +living players can match such a repertoire.] + +Perhaps the most annoying disturbance which ever came into Booth's +theatrical life, and not a great disturbance at that, was the jealousy +which existed between Wilks and himself. Wilks was impetuous, bad +tempered and crotchety, and it is possible that the envy was, +originally, rather of his own making. But be that as it may, Booth +suffered many a pang from the successes of the more dashing Wilks, and +the latter never lost an opportunity of thwarting his associate. We +remember how the commonplace Mills was pushed forward, with the idea +of hiding the genius of Barton, and Cibber refers more than once to +this short-sighted policy of Wilks. "And yet, again," he writes, +"Booth himself, when he came to be a manager, would sometimes suffer +his judgment to be blinded by his inclination to actors whom the town +seem'd to have but an indifferent opinion of." And thereupon Colley +asks "another of his old questions"--viz., "Have we never seen the +same passions govern a Court! How many white staffs and great places +do we find, in our histories, have been laid at the feet of a monarch, +because they chose not to give way to a rival in power, or hold a +second place in his favour? How many Whigs and Tories have changed +their parties, when their good or bad pretentions have met with a +check to their higher preferment?" + +The fact is that there was never any artistic sympathy between the two +distinguished actors. Booth could play comedy, and play it quite well, +but his soul was all for tragedy. On the other hand, while Wilks knew +how to tread the sombre paths of high drama (he even made a creditable +Hamlet), the comedian looked with more regard upon his own peculiar +vein of work, the impersonation of the graceful, the genteel, and the +elegantly picturesque. In one way the latter proved more generous +than his rival. "It might be imagin'd," runs on Cibber, "from the +difference of their natural tempers, that Wilks should have been more +blind to the excellencies of Booth than Booth was to those of Wilks; +but it was not so. Wilks would sometimes commend Booth to me; but when +Wilks excell'd the other was silent."[A] + +[Footnote A: During Booth's inability to act ...Wilks was called upon +to play two of his parts: Jaffier and Lord Hastings in "Jane Shore." +Booth was, at times, in all other respects except his power to go +on the stage, in good health, and went among the players for his +amusement. His curiosity drew him to the playhouse on the nights when +Wilks acted these characters, in which himself had appeared with +uncommon lustre. All the world admired Wilks except his brother +manager: amidst the repeated bursts of applause which he extorted, +Booth alone continued silent.--DAVIES.] + +But all these petty heartburnings and jealousies were buried in the +grave of Wilks. That incomparable player, whose sprightliness seemed +to defy the grim tyrant, and who could act the lithesome youth upon +the stage even though he had to hobble to his hackney-coach when the +piece was ended, made his last exit in the autumn of 1732. Booth +followed on the same long journey in the May of 1733, after an illness +during which the great patient was dosed with crude mercury, bled, +plastered, blistered, and otherwise helped onward to his death. +Verily, it is a wonder that the physicians of old did not extinguish +the whole human race. + +The still attractive Santlow (or rather Mrs. Booth) survived the +tragedian, and her sorrow may have been assuaged by the remembrance +that she was left the sole heir of her husband. "I have considered my +circumstances," wrote Booth in his will, "and finding upon a strict +examination that all I am now possessed of does not amount to +two-thirds of the fortune my wife brought me on the day of our +marriage, together with the yearly additions and advantages since +arising from her laborious employment on the stage during twelve years +past, I thought myself bound by honesty, honour, and gratitude due to +her constant affection, not to give away any part of the remainder of +her fortune at my death"; and with that eloquent stroke of the pen +the testator cut off with nothing a sister and a brother whom he had +sufficiently helped during his lifetime. + +Surely so noble an actor deserves an epitaph. Perhaps none could be +more worthy than this estimate of the man, made by Aaron Hill: "He had +learning to understand perfectly whatever it was his part to speak, +and judgment to know how far it agreed or disagreed with his +character. Hence arose a peculiar grace which was visible to every +spectator, tho' few were at the pains of examining into the cause of +their pleasure. He could soften, or slide over, with a kind of elegant +negligence, the improprieties in a part he acted; while, on the +contrary, he would dwell with energy upon the beauties, as if he +exerted a latent spirit which had been kept back for such an occasion, +that he might alarm, waken, and transport, to those places only, where +the dignity of his own good sense could be supported with that of his +author." + +If some players of to-day will take a lesson by this description, the +judicious Booth need not have lived in vain. His soul, like that of +the late lamented John Brown, will go marching on. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE FADING OF A STAR + + +The life of Mistress Oldfield, like that of Barton Booth, was cast in +pleasant places. Yet the lady had her little agitations, and found +them, no doubt, rather an incentive to existence than otherwise. Take, +for instance, the excitement surrounding the production, during the +Drury Lane season of 1711-12, of Mrs. Centlivre's play, "The Perplexed +Lovers." To the lovely Nance was entrusted the duty of speaking the +epilogue thereto, wherein Prince Eugene (at that time on a visit to +England) and the Duke of Marlborough were lauded in the true spirit of +ancient flunkeyism. But the animosity which politics doth breed ran +high, and the first night of the performance went by without the +introduction of the eulogy. Some patriots objected to the sentiments +which it contained, and the managers were cautious. As for Oldfield, +she might have been cautious, too, and with reason, for she had +received letters threatening her with dire pains and penalties if she +spoke the offending words, but Anne stood ready to deliver them at +whatsoever time the patentees might name. So when the second night of +"The Perplexed Lovers" arrived, and a special licence from the Lord +Chamberlain had been secured, the actress came valiantly forward and +spoke the epilogue with success. Perhaps Eugene of Savoy thanked Mrs. +Oldfield--let us hope that he did--and it is at least certain that +after the withdrawal of the play his Highness sent Mrs. Centlivre an +elaborate gold snuff-box.[A] + +[Footnote A: Speaking of the beau's outfit in the reign of Queen Anne, +Ashton says: "His snuff-box, too, was an object of his solicitude, +though, as the habit of taking snuff had but just come into vogue, +there were no collections of them, and no beau had ever dreamed of +criticizing a box, as did Lord Petersham, as, 'a nice Summer box.' ... +Those of the middle classes were chiefly of silver, or tortoise-shell, +or mother-of-pearl; sometimes of 'aggat' or with a 'Moco Stone' in +the lid. A beau would sometimes either have a looking-glass, or the +portrait of a lady inside the lid."] + +And who was the gratified Centlivre? A masculine looking female with +a talent for play-writing, a tendency to appear in men's parts, and +last, but far from least, a nice little wen adorning her left eyelid. +She possessed other characteristics too, but those herein mentioned +are the only ones which stand out clearly after the lapse of nearly +two centuries. This doughty woman had been married twice before she +went to Windsor, where she once more entered into the matrimonial +noose, or rather, again inveigled an unfortunate into that treacherous +device. The visit to the seat of Royalty was signalised by her acting +of Alexander the Great, but from the atmosphere of Kings and Queens +she passed without a murmur to the humbler air of a kitchen. In other +words, she married a Mr. Centlivre, chief cook to her well-fed Majesty +Queen Anne; and the mean-livered Pope would refer to her, later on, as +"the cook's wife in Buckingham Court." She might, indeed, be a cook's +wife, but she knew how to write with vivacity, and produced many an +entertaining play. Among them were "A Bold Stroke for a Wife" and "The +Wonder," that comedy which Garrick would so relish in after years. + +The nature of the aforesaid "Wonder" was explained in the satirical +reflection of the secondary title, "A Woman Keeps a Secret!" And Mrs. +Centlivre had this to say in her epilogue, upon the mooted question of +feminine loquacity: + + "Keep a secret, says a beau, + And sneers at some ill-natured wit below; + But faith, if we should tell but half we know, + There's many a spruce young fellow in this place, + Wou'd never presume to show his face; + Women are not so weak, what e'er men prate; + How many tip-top beaux have had the fate, + T'enjoy from mama's secrets their estate! + Who, if her early folly had made known, + Had rid behind the coach that's now their own." + +Mrs. Oldfield received fresh cause for nervousness, had she been of +a timid temperament, when, some years later, during the season of +1717-18, Cibber's political play of "The Non-Juror" was brought out. +The comedy was a blow aimed at the Jacobites and the Pretender, who +had met with such disastrous treatment in the rebellion of 1715, and +was a skilfully-wrought laudation of the Hanoverian dynasty.[A] + +[Footnote A: The piece was published and dedicated to George I., who +acknowledged his sense of the honour by paying to Cibber the sum of +two hundred guineas. That the good old prejudice against the stage was +still in full force, despite the march of liberal ideas, is clearly +shown in the author's address to the King: "Your comedians, Sir, are +an unhappy society, whom some severe heads think wholly useless, +and others, dangerous to the young and innocent. This comedy is, +therefore, an attempt to remove that prejudice, and to show what +honest and laudable uses may be made of the theatre, when its +performances keep close to the true purposes of its institution." +Cibber also referred to himself as "the lowest of your subjects from +the theatre," and thus mirrored the servility of the golden Georgian +era.] + +"About this time," writes Cibber, telling of the play's presentation, +"Jacobitism had lately exerted itself by the most unprovoked rebellion +that our histories have handed down to us since the Norman Conquest; +I therefore thought that to set the authors and principles of that +desperate folly in a fair light, by allowing the mistaken consciences +of some their best excuse, and by making the artful Pretenders to +Conscience as ridiculous as they were ungratefully wicked, was a +subject fit for the honest satire of comedy, and what might, if it +succeeded, do honour to the stage by showing the valuable use of +it. And considering what numbers at that time might come to it as +prejudiced spectators, it may be allow'd that the undertaking was not +less hazardous than laudable." + +And hazardous the project certainly seemed; for, while the uprising in +the interests of the Pretender had been ostensibly crushed, the spirit +of "divine right" was as strong as ever; there were many worthy +gentlemen who drank secret bumpers to the King--"over the water"--and +the Hanoverian throne had as yet a precarious lodgment on English +soil. It was expected, therefore, that these malcontents would have +anything but an appetite for the theatrical feast set before them in +the shape of the "Non-Juror," and would prove none the less disgusted +because the play happened to be an adaptation of Moliere's "Tartuffe." +As the latter comedy depicts a self-indulgent, crawling hypocrite of +the worst type, and is an eloquent sermon against sham, it may be +imagined that the Jacobites were not over enthusiastic when they +learned that the moral of "Tartuffe" was to be applied to them.[A] + +[Footnote A: Tartuffe, according to French tradition, is a caricature +of the famous Pere la Chaise (Confessor to Louis Quatorze), who had +a weakness for the pleasures of the table, including truffles +(tartuffes). After Cibber's day, Moliere's play was again adapted into +English, under the title of "The Hypocrite."] + +"Upon the hypocrisy of the French character," explains Cibber (who +probably looked upon France, Papacy, and the Pretender as a threefold +combination of sin), "I engrafted a stronger wickedness, that of an +English Popish priest lurking under the doctrine of our own Church +to raise his fortune upon the ruin of a worthy gentleman, whom his +dissembled sanctity had seduc'd into the treasonable cause of a Roman +Catholick outlaw. How this design, in the play, was executed, I refer +to the readers of it; it cannot be mended by any critical remarks I +can make in its favour. Let it speak for itself." + +The "Non-juror" did speak for itself, too, and that in decided +terms.[A] The production entailed the scorn of the disaffected, and +made for Cibber some lasting enemies, but the friends of government +were strong, Cibber was lauded for his loyalty, and the comedy +achieved a triumph. The vivacity of Oldfield's acting, as Maria, +delighted all beholders, and it was further agreed that the +performance was well given throughout. In the cast were Booth, Mills, +Wilks, Cibber, Mrs. Porter, Mrs. Oldfield, and Walker. The Walker here +mentioned was at that time a very young man, not over seventeen or +eighteen years of age, and made his first hit in the "Non-juror." When +the "Beggars' Opera" was subsequently brought out, the mighty Quin +refused to play the highwayman, Macheath, and Walker willingly took +the part and made therein the reputation of his life. But success +turned his unsteady head. "He follow'd Bacchus too ardently, insomuch +that his credit was often drown'd upon the stage, and, by degrees, +almost render'd him useless." Ungrammatical, but to the point, Mr. +Chetwood. + +[Footnote A: The success surpassed even expectation. It raised against +Cibber a phalanx of implacable foes--foes who howled at everything +of which he was afterwards the author; but it gained for him his +advancement to the poet-laureateship, and an estimation which caused +some people to place him, for usefulness to the cause of true +religion, on an equality with the author of "The Whole Duty of +Man."--DR. DORAN.] + +This Walker was a genius in a small fashion. He possessed an +expressive face and manly figure, with a native buoyancy and humour +which stood him in good stead in the character of Macheath, while he +had the further gift of dominating a tragic scene with an assumption +of tyrannic fire which must have been greatly admired by the +theatre-goers of his time. He could not sing, to be sure, when he +graced the "Beggars' Opera," but the audiences took the will for the +deed, applauded his gaiety of action, and quickly pardoned his lyric +short-comings. We are equally lenient nowadays to many a comic-opera +comedian, so called. Chetwood tells us that Walker was the supposed +author of two pieces, "The Quakers' Opera," and a tragedy styled "The +Fate of Villainy." The latter, it appears, "he brought to Ireland +in the year 1744, and prevailed on the proprietors (of the Dublin +theatre) to act it, under the title of 'Love and Loyalty.' The second +night was given out for his benefit; but not being able to pay in half +the charge of the common expences, the doors were order'd to be kept +shut." + +"But, I remember," laconically adds Chetwood, "few people came to ask +the reason. However, I fear this disappointment hasten'd his death; +for he survived it but three days; dying in the 44th year of his age, +a martyr to what often stole from him a good understanding." + + "He who delights in drinking out of season, + Takes wond'rous pains to drown his manly reason." + +Poor Walker! He is not the only actor who has perished from a mixture +of wine and injured vanity. + +To return to the success of the "Non-juror," Cibber writes: "All the +reason I had to think it no bad performance was, that it was acted +eighteen days running, and that the party that were hurt by it (as I +have been told) have not been the smallest number of my back friends +ever since. But happy was it for this play that the very subject +was its protection; a few smiles of silent contempt were the utmost +disgrace that on the first day of its appearance it was thought safe +to throw upon it; as the satire was chiefly employ'd on the enemies of +the Government, they were not so hardy as to own themselves such by +any higher disapprobation or resentment."[A] + +[Footnote A: The production of the "Non-juror" added Pope to the list +of Cibber's enemies, the great poet's father having been a Non-juror.] + +Yet Cibber's enemies never failed to make things unpleasant for him if +they could do so without running too great a risk. There was Nathaniel +Mist, for instance, who published a Jacobite paper called _Mist's +Weekly Journal_. This vindictive gentleman, whose political heresies +once brought him to the pillory and a prison, began a systematic +attack upon the actor-manager, and kept up the warfare for fifteen +years. Once, when Colley was ill of a fever, Mist made up his +journalistic mind that his enemy must have the good taste to depart +the pleasures of this life. So he inserted the following paragraph in +his paper: + +"Yesterday died Mr. Colley Cibber, late Comedian of the Theatre Royal, +notorious for writing the 'Non-juror.'" + +The very day that this obituary appeared Cibber crawled out of the +house, sick-faced but convalescent, and read the notice with keen +interest. Whether he was amused thereat, or dubbed the joke a poor +one, is a matter which he does not record, but he tells us that he +"saw no use in being thought to be thoroughly dead before his time," +and "therefore had a mind to see whether the town cared to have him +alive again." + +"So the play of the 'Orphan' being to be acted that day, I quietly +stole myself into the part of the Chaplain, which I had not been +seen in for many years before. The surprise of the audience at my +unexpected appearance on the very day I had been dead in the news, and +the paleness of my looks, seem'd to make it a doubt whether I was not +the ghost of my real self departed. But when I spoke, their wonder +eas'd itself by an applause; which convinc'd me they were then +satisfied that my friend Mist had told a fib of me. Now, if simply to +have shown myself in broad life, and about my business, after he had +notoriously reported me dead, can be called a reply, it was the only +one which his paper while alive ever drew from me." + +The Jacobites could not interfere with the triumph of the "Non-juror," +but they were shrewd enough to bide their time. That time came, as +they thought, in 1728, when there was unfolded at Drury Lane a comedy +which became famous under the title of "The Provoked Husband." The +rough draft of the play was the work of Vanbrugh, now dead, but the +dialogue and situations had been elaborated by Cibber. Here was a +chance, therefore, to damn the latter writer, and accordingly the +malcontents repaired to the theatre, hissed the performance roundly, +and then went home with the comfortable reflection that they had +gotten their revenge. Their revenge, however, was shortlived, for the +general public liked the comedy, and soon flocked to its rescue. + +"On the first day of 'The Provok'd Husband,'" says the Poet Laureate, +"ten years after the 'Non-juror' had appear'd, a powerful party, not +having the fear of publick offence or private injury before their +eyes, appeared most impetuously concerned for the demolition of it; in +which they so far succeeded that for some time I gave it up for lost; +and to follow their blows, in the publick papers of the next day it +was attack'd and triumph'd over as a dead and damn'd piece: a swinging +criticism was made upon it in general invective terms, for they +disdain'd to trouble the world with particulars; their sentence, it +seems, was proof enough of its deserving the fate it had met with. +But this damn'd play was, notwithstanding, acted twenty-eight nights +together, and left off at a receipt of upwards of a hundred and forty +pounds; which happened to be more than in fifty years before could be +then said of any one play whatsoever." + +The play was saved, and no one contributed more importantly to that +result than did Mistress Oldfield. Her acting as the heroine, Lady +Townley, was pronounced superb, and though she had now drifted into +middle-age--was she not over forty?--Nance still seemed, on the stage +at least, the incarnation of youth and grace. Is there not a certain +English actress, now living (one, by-the-way, who plays Nance Oldfield +and suggests her as well) who defies the inroads of time with equal +carelessness.[A] + +[Footnote A: In the wearing of her person she (Oldfield) was +particularly fortunate; her figure was always improving to her +thirty-sixth year, but her excellence in acting was never at a stand. +And Lady Townley, one of her last new parts, was a proof that she was +still able to do more, if more could have been done for her.--GENEST.] + +Lady Townley is nothing more or less than a glorified, matured edition +of Lady Betty Modish, and, therefore, a very charming woman. Charming, +at least, on the boards of a theatre, if not upon the floor of a real +drawing-room. For she has a love of pleasure which can hardly be +called domestic, and her unfortunate husband, who would see more of +her, is tempted to ask, in the very first scene of the play: "Why did +I marry?" "While she admits no lover," Lord Townley soliloquises [for +my lady is at least virtuous] "she thinks it a greater merit still, in +her chastity, not to care for her husband; and while she herself is +solacing in one continual round of cards and good company, he, poor +wretch, is left at large to take care of his own contentment. 'Tis +time, indeed, some care were taken, and speedily there shall be. Yet +let me not be rash. Perhaps this disappointment of my heart may +make me too impatient; and some tempers, when reproach'd, grow more +untractable." + +And when Lady Townley, all graces and ribbons and laces, enters on the +scene my lord meekly asks: + + + * * * * * + +"Going out so soon after dinner, madam?" + +"Lady T. Lord, my Lord, what can I possibly do at home? + +"Lord T. What does my sister, Lady Grace, do at home? + +"Lady T. Why, that is to me amazing! Have you ever any pleasure at +home? + +"Lord T. It might be in your power, madam, I confess, to make it a +little more comfortable to me. + +"Lady T. Comfortable! and so, my good lord, you would really have a +woman of my rank and spirit, stay at home to comfort her husband! +Lord! what notions of life some men have! + +"Lord T. Don't you think, madam, some ladies notions are full as +extravagant?" + +"Lady T. Yes, my lord, when tame doves live cooped within the pen of +your precepts, I do think 'em prodigious indeed! + +"Lord T. And when they fly wild about this town, madam, pray what must +the world think of 'em then? + +"Lady T. Oh! this world is not so ill bred as to quarrel with any +woman for liking it. + +"Lord T. Nor am I, madam, a husband so well bred as to bear my wife's +being so fond of it; in short, the life you lead, madam-- + +"Lady T. Is, to me, the pleasantest life in the world. + +"Lord T. I should not dispute your taste, madam, if a woman had a +right to please nobody but herself. + +"Lady T. Why, whom would you have her please? + +"Lord T. Sometimes her husband. + +"Lady T. And don't you think a husband under the same obligation? + +"Lord T. Certainly. + +"Lady T. Why then we are agreed, my lord. For if I never go abroad +till I am weary of being at home--which you know is the case--is it +not equally reasonable, not to come home till one's a weary of being +abroad? + +"Lord T. If this be your rule of life, madam, 'tis time to ask you one +serious question. + +"Lady T. Don't let it be long acoming then, for I am in haste. + +"Lord T. Madam, when I am serious, I expect a serious answer. + +"Lady T. Before I know the question? [Here we can imagine Wilks, who +played Lord Townley, waxing exceeding wroth at my lady.] + +"Lord T. Pshah--have I power, madam, to make you serious by intreaty? + +"Lady T. You have. + +"Lord T. And you promise to answer me sincerely. + +"Lady T. Sincerely. + +"Lord T. Now then recollect your thoughts, and tell me seriously why +you married me? + +"Lady T. You insist upon truth, you say? + +"Lord T. I think I have a right to it. + +"Lady T. Why then, my lord, to give you at once a proof of my +obedience and sincerity--I think--I married--to take off that +restraint that lay upon my pleasures, while I was a single woman. + +"Lord T. How, madam, is any woman under less restraint after marriage +than before it? + +"Lady T. O my lord! my lord! they are quite different creatures! Wives +have infinite liberties in life that would be terrible in an unmarried +woman to take. + +"Lord T. Name one. + +"Lady T. Fifty, if you please. To begin then, in the morning--a +married women may have men at her toilet, invite them to dinner, +appoint them a party in a stage box at the play; engross the +conversation there, call 'em by their Christian names; talk louder +than the players;--from thence jaunt into the city--take a frolicksome +supper at an India house--perhaps, in her _gaiete de coeur_, toast a +pretty fellow--then clatter again to this end of the town, break with +the morning into an assembly, crowd to the hazard table, throw a +familiar levant upon some sharp lurching man of quality, and if he +demands his money, turn it off with a loud laugh, and cry--you'll owe +it to him, to vex him! ha! ha! + +"Lord T. [_Aside_]. Prodigious!" + +It is related that so magnificently did Oldfield describe the +pleasures of a woman of fashion that the audience echoed, with a +different meaning, Lord Townley's comment, and showered her with +plaudits. "Prodigious," indeed, must have been her acting. + +Nance was even more captivating, as the comedy progressed, and nowhere +did she shine more brilliantly, it may be supposed, than in the +following scene: + +"Lady Townley. Well! look you, my lord; I can bear it no longer! +Nothing still but about my faults, my faults! An agreeable subject +truly! + +"Lord T. Why, madam, if you won't hear of them, how can I ever hope to +see you mend them? + +"Lady T. Why, I don't intend to mend them--I can't mend them--you know +I have try'd to do it an hundred times, and--it hurts me so--I can't +bear it! + +"Lord T. And I, madam, can't bear this daily licentious abuse of your +time and character. + +"Lady T. Abuse! astonishing! when the universe knows, I am never +better company than when I am doing what I have a mind to! But to +see this world! that men can never get over that silly spirit of +contradiction--why, but last Thursday, now--there you wisely amended +one of my faults, as you call them--you insisted upon my not going to +the masquerade--and pray, what was the consequence? Was not I as cross +as the Devil, all the night after? Was not I forc'd to get company at +home? And was it not almost three o'clock in the morning before I +was able to come to myself again? And then the fault is not mended +neither--for next time I shall only have twice the inclination to go: +so that all this mending and mending, you see, is but darning an old +ruffle, to make it worse than it was before. + +"Lord T. Well, the manner of women's living, of late, is +insupportable, and one way or other-- + +"Lady T. It's to be mended, I suppose! Why, so it may, but then, my +dear lord, you must give one time--and when things are at worst, you +know, they may mend themselves! Ha! ha! + +"Lord T. Madam, I am not in a humour, now, to trifle. + +"Lady T. Why, then, my lord, one word of fair argument--to talk with +you, your own way now--you complain of my late hours, and I of your +early ones--so far we are even, you'll allow--but pray which gives us +the best figure, in the eye of the polite world, my active, spirited +three in the morning, or your dull, drowsy, eleven at night? Now, +I think, one has the air of a woman of quality, and t'other of a +plodding mechanic, that goes to bed betimes, that he may rise early, +to open his shop--faugh! + +"LORD T. Fy, fy, madam! is this your way of reasoning? 'Tis time to +wake you then. 'Tis not your ill hours alone that disturb me, but as +often the ill company that occasion those ill hours. + +"LADY T. Sure I don't understand you now, my lord; what ill company do +I keep? + +"LORD T. Why, at best, women that lose their money, and men that win +it! or, perhaps, men that are voluntary bubbles at one game, in hopes +a lady will give them fair play at another.[A] Then that unavoidable +mixture with known rakes, conceal'd thieves, and sharpers in +embroidery--or what, to me, is still more shocking, that herd of +familiar chattering, crop-ear'd coxcombs, who are so often like +monkeys, there would be no knowing them asunder, but that their tails +hang from their head, and the monkey's grows where it should do. + +[Footnote A: Women gambled as passionately as did the men in the early +part of the eighteenth century. Ashton quotes the following from the +"Gaming Lady": "She's a profuse lady, tho' of a miserly temper, whose +covetous disposition is the very cause of her extravagancy; for the +desire of success wheedles her ladyship to play, and the incident +charges and disappointments that attend it make her as expensive to +her husband as his coach and six horses. When an unfortunate night has +happen'd to empty her cabinet, she has many shifts to replenish her +pockets. Her jewels are carry'd privately into Lombard street, and +fortune is to be tempted the next night with another sum, borrowed +of my lady's goldsmith at the extortion of a pawnbroker; and if that +fails, then she sells off her wardrobe, to the great grief of her +maids; stretches her credit amongst those she deals with, or makes her +waiting woman dive into the bottom of her trunk, and lug out her green +net purse full of old Jacobuses, in hopes to recover her losses by a +turn of fortune, that she may conceal her bad luck from the knowledge +of her husband."] + +"Lady T. And a husband must give eminent proof of his sense that +thinks their powder puffs dangerous! + +"Lord T. Their being fools, madam, is not always the husband's +security; or, if it were, fortune sometimes gives them advantages +might make a thinking woman tremble. + +"Lady T. What do you mean? + +"Lord T. That women sometimes lose more than they are able to pay; +and, if a creditor be a little pressing, the lady may be reduced to +try if, instead of gold, the gentleman will accept of a trinket. + +"Lady T. My lord, you grow scurrilous; you'll make me hate you. I'll +have you to know I keep company with the politest people in town, and +the assemblies I frequent are full of such. + +"Lord T. So are the churches--now and then. + +"Lady T. My friends frequent them, too, as well as the assemblies. + +"Lord T. Yes; and would do it oftener if a groom of the chambers there +were allowed to furnish cards to the company. + +"Lady T. I see what you drive at all this while. You would lay an +imputation on my fame to cover your own avarice! I might take any +pleasures, I find, that were not expensive. + +"Lord T. Have a care, madam; don't let me think you only value your +chastity to make me reproachable for not indulging you in everything +else that's vicious. I, madam, have a reputation, too, to guard that's +dear to me as yours. The follies of an ungoverned wife may make the +wisest man uneasy; but 'tis his own fault if ever they make him +contemptible. + +"Lady T. My lord, you make a woman mad! + +"Lord T. You'd make a man a fool. + +"Lady T. If heaven has made you otherwise, that won't be in my power. + +"Lord T. Whatever may be in your inclination, madam, I'll prevent you +making me a beggar, at least. + +"Lady T. A beggar! Croesus, I'm out of patience. I won't come home +till four to-morrow morning. + +"Lord T. That may be, madam; but I'll order the doors to be locked at +twelve. + +"Lady T. Then I won't come home till to-morrow night. + +"Lord T. Then, madam, you shall never come home again." [_Exit_ Lord +Townley. + + * * * * * + +In the end, of course, Lady Townley is converted to the pleasures of +domesticity, and ends the comedy by saying: + + "So visible the bliss, so plain the way, + How was it possible my sense could stray? + But now, a convert to this truth I come, + That married happiness is never found from home." + +Perhaps when Oldfield delivered these virtuous lines, she thought to +herself that happiness, even of the unmarried kind, was never very far +away from home. But she forgot sentiment when she came back to give +the breezy epilogue: + + "Methinks I hear some powder'd critics say + Damn it, this wife reform'd has spoil'd the play! + The coxcombs should have drawn her more in fashion, + Have gratify'd her softer inclination, + Have tipt her a gallant, and clinch'd the provocation. + But there our bard stops short: for 'twere uncivil + T'have made a modern belle all o'er a devil! + He hop'd in honor of the sex, the age + Would bear one mended woman--on the stage." + +Continuing, after diverse moral reflections, Nance made this appeal to +her hearers: + + "You, you then, ladies, whose unquestion'd lives + Give you the foremost fame of happy wives, + Protect, for its attempt, this helpless play; + Nor leave it to the vulgar taste a prey; + Appear the frequent champion of its cause, + Direct the crowd, and give yourselves applause." + +"Zounds, madam," cries a beau who is ogling a woman of quality in a +stage box, "they say Anne Oldfield will never see forty-two again, but +I'll warrant you, madam, she looks not a day older than yourself." And +the woman of quality, who is over forty, bows at the compliment, as +well she may. Bellchambers records that Lady Townley was universally +regarded as Oldfield's _ne plus ultra_ in acting. "She slided so +gracefully into the foibles, and displayed so humorously the excesses, +of a fine woman too sensible of her charms, too confident in her +strength, and led away by her pleasures, that no succeeding Lady +Townley arrived at her many distinguished excellencies in the +character."[A] And the writer goes on to say that "by being a welcome +and constant visitor to families of distinction, Mrs. Oldfield +acquired a graceful carriage in representing women of high rank, and +expressed their sentiments in a manner so easy, natural, and flowing, +that they appeared to be of her own genuine utterance." Pray, sir, +what is there so remarkable about that? Had not Anne as gentle blood +as that which coursed through the veins of many a lady of rank? + +[Footnote A: The Lady Townleys of later years included Mrs. Spranger +Barry and the imposing Mistress Yates.] + +But the triumphs of the first Lady Townley were fast drawing to a +close; the curtain would soon be rung down for ever upon that radiant +face, with its angelic smile and dancing eyes, and the stage, whether +Drury Lane or mother earth would see her no more. Ill health began to +follow in her once careless path, and there were times when the duties +of acting seemed almost unbearable. Yet she was a brave woman, and +kept a merry front to the audience, although she was obliged, on +occasions, to turn away from the house, that it might not see the +tears of pain flowing down her cheek. Here was a combination of comedy +and tragedy, with a vengeance! + +Still Nance went on, delighting the town as of yore, and putting into +her last original role, that of Sophonisba, a fire which breathed not +of sickness nor failing powers. At last there came a day when she +played her final part, and left Drury Lane only to be driven tenderly +home to her death-bed. Think of the pathos of this last performance, +this giving up of all that was most alluring in life, and let none of +us poor moderns presume to analyse the heart-broken woman's feelings +as she said good-bye to the dear old theatre. Anne worshipped art, and +the public, in turn, worshipped her; she had acted her many parts, +laughed, cried, sinned, and waxed exceeding happy--and now she was to +be cast out into the darkness. Must she not have shivered when she +entered her house in Lower Grosvenor Street for the last time? Poor +lovable creature! There could be for her now neither lights, nor +laughter, nor applause; all would be gloom and weariness to the end. + +During the weeks which followed, the invalid received the untiring +attentions of Mistress Saunders, who once upon a time played bouncing +chambermaids, but who had, for ten years past, acted as a feminine +_valet de chambre_ and general factotum for Mrs. Oldfield. And if ever +she played well, 'twas in thus ministering to the dying wants of one +who in health had been ever helpful and generous. Pope, who hated the +great comedienne in his petty, spiteful way, has immortalised the +intimacy of mistress and handmaiden in these lines: + + "'Odious! in woolen? 'twould a saint provoke!' + Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke. + 'No, let a charming Chintz and Brussels lace + Wrap my cold limbs and shade my lifeless face; + One would not sure be frightful when one's dead, + And, Betty, give this cheek a little red.'"[A] + +[Footnote A: Pope's Moral Essays.] + +These ante-mortem directions had no further reality than the +imagination of the poet; but it is easy to believe that the woman who +had set the fashions for the town these many years would have enough +of the feminine instinct left, though Death waited without, to plan a +becoming funeral garb. Woollen, forsooth! It was a beastly law which +required that all the dead should be buried in that material, and +Nance shuddered when she thought of it.[A] + +[Footnote A: The dead were then buried in woolen, which was rendered +compulsory by the Acts 30 Car. II. c. 3 and 36 ejusdem c. i. The first +act was entitled "an Act for the lessening the importation of linnen +from beyond the seas, and the encouragement of the woolen and paper +manufactures of the kingdome." It prescribed that the curate of every +parish, shall keep a register to be provided at the charge of the +parish, wherein to enter all burials and affidavits of persons being +buried in woolen; the affidavit to be taken by any justice of the +peace, mayor, or such like chief officer in the parish where the +body was interred.... It imposed a fine of five pounds for every +infringement, one half to go to the informer, and the other half to +the poor of the parish. This Act was only repealed by 54 Geo. III. +c. 108, or in the year 1815. The material used was flannel, and +such interments are frequently mentioned in the literature of the +time.--ASHTON.] + +Soon there were no more thoughts of dress, no more plaintive shudders +at the iniquity of the woollen act. The eyes whose kindly light had +illumined the dull soul of many a playgoer, closed for ever on the +23rd of October, 1730, and the incomparable Oldfield was no more. +Surely old Sol did not shine on London that day; surely he must +have mourned behind the leaden English sky for one of his fairest +daughters, that child of sunshine who brightened the world by her +presence, and made her exit, as she did her entrance, with a smile. + +After the breath had left Anne's still lovely body, Mistress Saunders +dressed her in a "Brussels lace head-dress, a Holland shift, with +tucker and double ruffles of the same lace, and a pair of new +kid gloves." It was, no doubt, the costume which the actress had +commanded, and handsome she must have looked, as many an admirer took +one last glimpse of the remains prior to the interment in Westminster +Abbey. All that was mortal of Oldfield lay in state in the Jerusalem +Chamber,[A] and then there followed an elaborate funeral, at which +were present a host of great men, and the two sons of the deceased, +Mr. Maynwaring and young Churchill. Were these sons less grieved when +they found that their mother had left them the major part of her +fortune? + +[Footnote A: The solemn lying in state of an English actress in the +Jerusalem Chamber, the sorrow of the public over their lost favourite, +and the regret of friends in noble, or humble, but virtuous homes, +where Mrs. Oldfield had been ever welcome, contrast strongly with the +French sentiment towards French players. It has been already said, +that as long as Clairon exercised the power, when she advanced to the +footlights, to make the (then standing) pit recoil several feet, by +the mere magic of her eyes, the pit, who enjoyed the terror as a +luxury, flung crowns to her, and wept at the thought of losing her; +but Clairon infirm was Clairon forgotten, and to a decaying actor or +actress a French audience is the most merciless in the world. The +brightest and best of them, as with us, died in the service of the +public. Monfleury, Mondory, and Bricourt died of apoplexy, brought on +by excess of zeal. Moliere, who fell in harness, was buried with +less ceremony than some favourite dog. The charming Lecouvreur, that +Oldfield of the French stage, whose beauty and intellect were the +double charm which rendered theatrical France ecstatic, was hurriedly +interred within a saw-pit. Bishops might be exceedingly interested in, +and unepiscopally generous to living actresses of wit and beauty, but +the prelates smote them with a "Maranatha!" and an "Avaunt ye!" when +dead.--DR. DORAN.] + +Later on Savage was inspired to write that famous poem of his, +unsigned though it appeared, on the virtues of the departed: + + "Oldfield's no more! and can the Muse forbear + O'er Oldfield's grave to shed a grateful tear? + Shall she, the Glory of the British Stage, + Pride of her sex, and wonder of the age; + Shall she, who, living, charm'd th' admiring throng, + Die undistinguish'd, and not claim a song? + No; feeble as it is, I'll boldly raise + My willing voice, to celebrate her praise, + And with her name immortalise my lays. + Had but my Muse her art to touch the soul, + Charm ev'ry sense, and ev'ry pow'r control, + I'd paint her as she was--the form divine, + Where ev'ry lovely grace united shine; + A mein majestic, as the wife of Jove; + An air as winning as the Queen of Love: + In ev'ry feature rival charms should rise, + And Cupid hold his empire in her eyes. + A soul, with ev'ry elegance refin'd, + By nature, and the converse of mankind: + Wit, which could strike assuming folly dead; + And sense, which temper'd ev'ry thing she said; + Judgment, which ev'ry little fault could spy; + But candour, which would pass a thousand by: + Such finish'd breeding, so polite a taste, + Her fancy always for the fashion pass'd; + Whilst every social virtue fir'd her breast + To help the needy, succour the distrest; + A friend to all in misery she stood, + And her chief pride was plac'd in doing good. + But now, my Muse, the arduous task engage, + And shew the charming figure on the stage; + Describe her look, her action, voice and mein, + The gay coquette, soft maid, or haughty Queen. + So bright she shone, in ev'ry different part, + She gain'd despotic empire o'er the heart; + Knew how each various motion to control, + Sooth ev'ry passion, and subdue the soul: + As she, o'er gay, or sorrowful appears, + She claims our mirth, or triumphs in our tears. + When Cleopatra's form she chose to wear + We saw the monarch's mein, the beauty's air; + Charmed with the sight, her cause we all approve, + And, like her lover, give up all for love: + Anthony's fate, instead of Caesar's choose, + And wish for her we had a world to lose. + But now the gay delightful scene is o'er, + And that sweet form must glad our world no more; + Relentless death has stop'd the tuneful tongue, + And clos'd those eyes, for all, but death, too strong, + Blasted that face where ev'ry beauty bloom'd, + And to Eternal Rest the graceful Mover doom'd." + +In writing which Savage almost justified his existence. + + + + +APPENDIX + + +THEATRICAL CLAPTRAP + +(_What Addison has to say about it in the "Spectator_") + +No. 44. FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1711. + + "Tu quid ego, et populus mecum desideret, audi." + HOR. ARS POET. ver. 153. + + "Now hear what ev'ry auditor expects." + ROSCOMMON. + + +Among the several artifices which are put in practice by the poets to +fill the minds of an audience with terror, the first place is due to +thunder and lightning, which are often made use of at the descending +of a god, or the rising of a ghost, at the vanishing of a devil, or +at the death of a tyrant. I have known a bell introduced into several +tragedies with good effect; and have seen the whole assembly in a very +great alarm all the while it has been ringing. But there is nothing +which delights and terrifies our English theatre so much as a ghost, +especially when he appears in a bloody shirt. A spectre has very often +saved a play, though he has done nothing but stalked across the stage, +or rose through a cleft of it, and sunk again without speaking one +word. There may be a proper season for these several terrors; and when +they only come in as aids and assistances to the poet, they are not +only to be excused, but to be applauded. Thus the sounding of the +clock in "Venice Preserved" makes the hearts of the whole audience +quake, and conveys a stronger terror to the mind than it is possible +for words to do. The appearance of the ghost in "Hamlet" is a +masterpiece in its kind, and wrought up with all the circumstances +that can create either attention or horror. The mind of the reader is +wonderfully prepared for his reception by the discourses that precede +it. His dumb behaviour at his first entrance strikes the imagination +very strongly; but every time he enters he is still more terrifying. +Who can read the speech with which young Hamlet accosts him without +trembling? + + "_Hor_. Look, my Lord, it comes! + + "_Ham_. Angels and ministers of grace defend us! + Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd; + Bring with thee airs from heav'n, or blasts from hell; + Be thy events wicked or charitable; + Thou com'st in such a questionable shape + That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet, + King, Father, Royal Dane. Oh I answer me. + Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell + Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death, + Have burst their cerements? Why the sepulchre, + Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd, + Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws + To cast thee up again? What may this mean? + That thou dead corse again in complete steel + Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon, + Making night hideous?" + +I do not therefore find fault with the artifices above mentioned, +when they are introduced with skill and accompanied by proportionable +sentiments and expressions in the writings. + +For the moving of pity our principal machine is the handkerchief; and +indeed in our common tragedies we should not know very often that the +persons are in distress by anything they say, if they did not from +time to time apply their handkerchiefs to their eyes. Far be it from +me to think of banishing this instrument of sorrow from the stage; I +know a tragedy could not subsist without it: all that I would contend +for is to keep it from being misapplied. In a word, I would have the +actor's tongue sympathise with his eyes. + +A disconsolate mother, with a child in her hand, has frequently drawn +compassion from the audience, and has therefore gained a place in +several tragedies. A modern writer, that observed how this had took +in other plays, being resolved to double the distress, and melt +his audience twice as much as those before him had done, brought a +princess upon the stage with a little boy in one hand and a girl +in the other. This too had a very good effect. A third poet being +resolved to outwrite all his predecessors, a few years ago introduced +three children with great success: and, as I am informed, a young +gentleman, who is fully determined to break the most obdurate hearts, +has a tragedy by him where the first person that appears upon the +stage is an afflicted widow in her mourning weeds, with half a dozen +fatherless children attending her, like those that usually hang about +the figure of Charity. Thus several incidents that are beautiful in a +good writer become ridiculous by falling into the hands of a bad one. + +But among all our methods of moving pity or terror, there is none so +absurd and barbarous, and which more exposes us to the contempt and +ridicule of our neighbours, than that dreadful butchering of one +another, which is very frequent upon the English stage. To delight in +seeing men stabbed, poisoned, racked, or impaled is certainly the sign +of a cruel temper; and as this is often practised before the British +audience, several French critics, who think these are grateful +spectacles to us, take occasion from them to represent us as a people +who delight in blood. It is indeed very odd to see our stage strewed +with carcasses in the last scenes of a tragedy; and to observe in the +wardrobe of the playhouse several daggers, poniards, wheels, bowls for +poison, and many other instruments of death. Murders and executions +are always transacted behind the scenes in the French theatre, which +in general is very agreeable to the manners of a polite and civilised +people; but as there are no exceptions to this rule on the French +stage, it leads them into absurdities almost as ridiculous as that +which falls under our present censure. I remember in the famous play +of Corneille, written upon the subject of the Horatii and Curiatii, +the fierce young hero, who had overcome the Curiatii one after another +(instead of being congratulated by his sister for his victory, being +upbraided by her for having slain her lover), in the height of his +passion and resentment kills her. If anything could extenuate so +brutal an action, it would be the doing of it on a sudden, before the +sentiments of nature, reason, or manhood could take place in him. +However, to avoid public bloodshed, as soon as his passion is wrought +to its height, he follows his sister the whole length of the stage, +and forbears killing her till they are both withdrawn behind the +scenes. I must confess, had he murdered her before the audience, the +indecency might have been greater; but as it is, it appears very +unnatural, and looks like killing in cold blood. To give my opinion +upon this case, the fact ought not to have been represented, but to +have been told if there was any occasion for it. + +It may not be unacceptable to the reader to see how Sophocles has +conducted a tragedy under the like delicate circumstance. Orestes was +in the same condition with Hamlet in Shakespeare, his mother having +murdered his father and taken possession of his kingdom in conspiracy +with her adulterer. That young prince, therefore, being determined to +revenge his father's death upon those who filled his throne, conveys +himself by a beautiful stratagem into his mother's apartment, with a +resolution to kill her. But because such a spectacle would have been +too shocking to the audience, this dreadful resolution is executed +behind the scenes. The mother is heard calling to her son for mercy, +and the son answering her that she showed no mercy to his father; +after which she shrieks out that she is wounded, and by what follows +we find that she is slain. I do not remember that in any of our plays +there are speeches made behind the scenes, though there are other +instances of this nature to be met with in those of the ancients: +and I believe my reader will agree with me that there is something +infinitely more affecting in this dreadful dialogue between the +mother and her son behind the scenes than could have been in anything +transacted before the audience. Orestes immediately after meets the +usurper at the entrance of his palace; and by a very happy thought of +the poet avoids killing him before the audience, by telling him that +he should live some time in his present bitterness of soul before he +would despatch him, and by ordering him to retire into that part +of the palace where he had slain his father, whose murder he would +revenge in the very same place where it was committed. By this means +the poet observes that decency, which Horace afterwards established as +a rule, of forbearing to commit parricides or unnatural murders before +the audience. + + "Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet," + ARS POET. ver. 185. + + "Let not Medea draw her murd'ring knife, + And spill her children's blood upon the stage." + ROSCOMMON. + +The French have therefore refined too much upon Horace's rule, who +never designed to banish all kinds of death from the stage; but only +such as had too much horror in them, and which would have a better +effect upon the audience when transacted behind the scenes. I would +therefore recommend to my countrymen the practice of the ancient +poets, who were very sparing of their public executions, and rather +chose to perform them behind the scenes, if it could be done with as +great an effect upon the audience. At the same time, I must observe, +that though the devoted persons of the tragedy were seldom slain +before the audience, which has generally something ridiculous in it, +their bodies were often produced after their death, which has always +in it something melancholy or terrifying; so that the killing on the +stage does not seem to have been avoided only as an indecency, but +also as an improbability. + + "Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet: + Aut humana palam coquat exta nefarius Atreus; + Aut in avem Progne vertatur, Cadmus in anguem. + Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi." + HOR. ARS. POET. ver. 185. + + "Medea must not draw her murd'ring knife, + Nor Atreus there his horrid feast prepare; + Cadmus and Progne's metamorphoses + (She to a swallow turn'd, he to a snake); + And whatsoever contradicts my sense, + I hate to see, and never can believe." + ROSCOMMON. + +I have now gone through the several dramatic inventions which are made +use of by the ignorant poets to supply the place of tragedy, and +by the skilful to improve it; some of which I could wish entirely +rejected, and the rest to be used with caution. It would be an +endless task to consider comedy in the same light, and to mention the +innumerable shifts that small wits put in practice to raise a laugh. +Bullock in a short coat, and Norris in a long one, seldom failed of +this effect.[A] In ordinary comedies a broad and a narrow brimmed +hat are different characters. Sometimes the wit of a scene lies in a +shoulder-belt, and sometimes in a pair of whiskers. A lover running +about the stage, with his head peeping out of a barrel, was thought a +very good jest in King Charles the Second's time, and invented by +one of the first wits of the age.[B] But because ridicule is not so +delicate as compassion, and because the objects that make us laugh are +infinitely more numerous than those that make us weep, there is a much +greater latitude for comic than tragic artifices, and by consequence a +much greater indulgence to be allowed them. + +[Footnote A: Addison's comment about these two favourite comedians +shows that then, as now, eccentricity in dress formed a popular +species of stage humour.] + +[Footnote B: Sir George Etherege, in his comedy of "The Comical +Revenge, or Love in a Tub."] + + + + +COMIC EPILOGUES + +_(From the "Spectator")_ + +No. 338. FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1712. + + "Nil fuit unquam + Sic dispar sibi." + HOR. SAT. III. 1-1-18. + + "Made up of nought but inconsistencies." + + +I find the tragedy of the "Distressed Mother" is published to-day. The +author of the prologue,[A] I suppose pleads an old excuse I have read +somewhere, of "being dull with design;" and the gentleman who writ the +epilogue[B] has, to my knowledge, so much of greater moment to value +himself upon, that he will easily forgive me for publishing the +exceptions made against gaiety at the end of serious entertainments in +the following letter: I should be more unwilling to pardon him, than +anybody, a practice which cannot have any ill consequence, but from +the abilities of the person who is guilty of it. + +[Footnote A: Steele.] + +[Footnote B: Addison credited Budgell with the epilogue.] + +"MR. SPECTATOR,--I had the happiness the other night of sitting very +near you, and your worthy friend Sir Roger, at the acting of the new +tragedy, which you have in a late paper or two so justly recommended. +I was highly pleased with the advantageous situation fortune had given +me in placing me so near two gentlemen, from one of which I was sure +to hear such reflections on the several incidents of the play as pure +nature suggested; and from the other, such as flowed from the exactest +art and judgment; though I must confess that my curiosity led me so +much to observe the knight's reflections that I was not so well at +leisure to improve myself by yours. Nature, I found, played her part +in the knight pretty well, till at the last concluding lines she +entirely forsook him. You must know, Sir, that it is always my custom, +when I have been well entertained at a new tragedy, to make my retreat +before the facetious epilogue enters; not but that those pieces are +often very well writ, but having paid down my half-crown, and made a +fair purchase of as much of the pleasing melancholy as the poet's art +can afford me, or my own nature admit of, I am willing to carry some +of it home with me; and cannot endure to be at once tricked out of +all, though by the wittiest dexterity in the world. However, I kept my +seat the other night, in hopes of finding my own sentiments of this +matter favoured by your friend's; when, to my great surprise, I found +the knight, entering with equal pleasure into both parts, and as much +satisfied with Mrs. Oldfield's gaiety, as he had been before with +Andromache's greatness. Whether this were no more than an effect of +the knight's peculiar humanity, pleased to find at last, that, after +all the tragical doings, everything was safe and well, I do not know. +But for my own part, I must confess I was so dissatisfied, that I was +sorry the poet had saved Andromache, and could heartily have wished +that he had left her stone-dead upon the stage. For you cannot +imagine, Mr. Spectator, the mischief she was reserved to do me. I +found my soul, during the action, gradually worked up to the highest +pitch; and felt the exalted passion which all generous minds conceive +at the sight of virtue in distress. The impression, believe me, Sir, +was so strong upon me, that I am persuaded, if I had been let alone in +it, I could at an extremity have ventured to defend yourself and Sir +Roger against half a score of the fiercest Mohocks; but the ludicrous +epilogue in the close extinguished all my ardour, and made me look +upon all such noble achievements as downright silly and romantic. What +the rest of the audience felt, I cannot so well tell. For myself I +must declare, that at the end of the play I found my soul uniform, +and all of a piece; but at the end of the epilogue, it was so jumbled +together and divided between jest and earnest, that, if you will +forgive me an extravagant fancy, I will here set it down. I could +not but fancy, if my soul had at that moment quitted my body, and +descended to the poetical shades in the posture it was then in, what +a strange figure it would have made among them. They would not have +known what to have made of my motley spectre, half comic and half +tragic, all over resembling a ridiculous face, that, at the same time, +laughs on one side, and cries on the other. The only defence, I think, +I have ever heard made for this, as it seems to me the most unnatural +tack of the comic tail to the tragic head, is this, that the minds of +the audience must be refreshed, and gentlemen and ladies not sent away +to their own homes with too dismal and melancholy thoughts about them: +for who knows the consequence of this? We are much obliged indeed to +poets for the great tenderness they express for the safety of our +persons, and heartily thank them for it. But if that be all, pray, +good Sir, assure them, that we are none of us like to come to any +great harm; and that, let them do their best, we shall, in all +probability, live out the length of our days, and frequent the +theatres more than ever. What makes me more desirous to have some +reformation of this matter is, because of an ill consequence or two +attending it: for a great many of our church musicians being related +to the theatre, they have, in imitation of these epilogues, introduced +in their farewell voluntaries, a sort of music quite foreign to the +design of church-services, to the great prejudice of well-disposed +people. Those fingering gentlemen should be informed, that they ought +to suit their airs to the place and business; and that the musician is +obliged to keep to the text as much as the preacher. For want of this, +I have found by experience a great deal of mischief. For when the +preacher has often, with great piety, and art enough, handled his +subject, and the judicious clerk has with the utmost diligence called +out two staves proper to the discourse, and I have found in myself, +and in the rest of the pew, good thoughts and dispositions, they have +been all in a moment dissipated by a merry jig from the organ loft. +One knows not what further ill effects the epilogues I have been +speaking of may in time produce: but this I am credibly informed of, +that Paul Lorrain[A] has resolved upon a very sudden reformation in +his tragical dramas; and that, at the next monthly performance, he +designs, instead of a penitential psalm, to dismiss his audience with +an excellent new ballad of his own composing. Pray, Sir, do what you +can to put a stop to these growing evils, and you will very much +oblige your humble servant, + +"PHYSIBULUS." + +[Footnote A: At that time ordinary of Newgate; and who, in his +accounts of the convicts executed at Tyburn, generally represented +them as true penitents, and dying very well.] + + + + +No. 341. TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 1712. + + "--Revocate animos, maestumque timorem + Mittite--" + VIRG. AEN.I. 206. + + "Resume your courage, and dismiss your care." + DRYDEN. + + +Having, to oblige my correspondent Physibulus, printed his letter last +Friday, in relation to the new epilogue, he cannot take it amiss, if I +now publish another, which I have just received from a gentleman who +does not agree with him in his sentiments upon that matter. + +"Sir,--I am amazed to find an epilogue attacked in your last Friday's +paper, which has been so generally applauded by the town, and received +such honours as were never before given to any in an English theatre. + +"The audience would not permit Mrs. Oldfield to go off the stage the +first night till she had repeated it twice; the second night the noise +of _ancora_ was as loud as before, and she was again obliged to speak +it twice; the third night it was called for a second time; and, in +short, contrary to all other epilogues, which are dropped after the +third representation of the play, this has already been repeated nine +times. + +"I must own I am the more surprised to find this censure, in +opposition to the whole town, in a paper which has hitherto been +famous for the candour of its criticisms. + +"I can by no means allow your melancholy correspondent, that the +new epilogue is unnatural, because it is gay. If I had a mind to be +learned, I could tell him that the prologue and epilogue were real +parts of the ancient tragedy; but every one knows, that on the British +stage, they are distinct performances by themselves, pieces entirely +detached from the play, and no way essential to it. + +"The moment the play ends, Mrs. Oldfield is no more Andromache, but +Mrs. Oldfield; and though the poet had left Andromache stone-dead upon +the stage, as your ingenious correspondent phrases it, Mrs. Oldfield +might still have spoke a merry epilogue. We have an instance of this +in a tragedy where there is not only a death, but a martyrdom.[A] St. +Catherine was there personated by Nell Gwyn; she lies stone-dead upon +the stage, but, upon those gentlemen's offering to remove her body, +whose business it is to carry off the slain in our English tragedies, +she breaks out into that abrupt beginning of what was a very +ludicrous, but at the same time thought a very good epilogue:-- + + "'Hold: are you mad? you damn'd confounded dog! + I am to rise and speak the epilogue.' + +[Footnote A: "Tyrannic Love; or, the Royal Martyr." By Dryden.] + +"This diverting manner was always practised by Mr. Dryden, who, if he +was not the best writer of tragedies in his time, was allowed by every +one to have the happiest turn for a prologue or an epilogue. The +epilogues to 'Cleomenes,' 'Don Sebastian,' the 'Duke of Guise,' +'Aurengezebe,' and 'Love Triumphant,' are all precedents of this +nature. + +"I might further justify this practice by that excellent epilogue +which was spoken, a few years since, after the tragedy of 'Phaedra and +Hippolitus;'[A] with a great many others, in which the authors have +endeavoured to make the audience merry. If they have not all succeeded +so well as the writer of this, they have however shown that it was not +for want of good will. + +[Footnote A: By Edmund Neal.] + +"I must further observe, that the gaiety of it may be still the more +proper, as it is at the end of a French play; since every one knows +that nation, who are generally esteemed to have as polite a taste as +any in Europe, always close their tragic entertainments with what they +call a _petite piece_, which is purposely designed to raise mirth, and +send away the audience well pleased. The same person who has supported +the chief character in the tragedy, very often plays the principal +part in the _petite piece_; so that I have myself seen, at Paris, +Orestes and Lubin acted the same night by the same man. + +"Tragi-comedy, indeed, you have yourself, in a former speculation, +found fault with very justly, because it breaks the tide of the +passions, while they are yet flowing; but this is nothing at all to +the present case, where they have already had their full course. + +"As the new epilogue is written conformably to the practice of our +best poets, so it is not such an one, which, as the Duke of Buckingham +says in his 'Rehearsal,' might serve for any other play; but wholly +rises out of the occurrences of the piece it was composed for. + +"The only reason your mournful correspondent gives against this +facetious epilogue, as he calls it, is, that he has a mind to go home +melancholy. I wish the gentleman may not be more grave than wise. For +my own part, I must confess, I think it very sufficient to have the +anguish of a fictitious piece remain upon me while it is representing; +but I love to be sent home to bed in a good humour. If Physibulus is +however resolved to be inconsolable, and not to have his tears dried +up, he need only continue his old custom, and when he has had his +half-crown's worth of sorrow, slink out before the epilogue begins. + +"It is pleasant enough to hear this tragical genius complaining of the +great mischief Andromache had done him. What was that? Why, she +made him laugh. The poor gentleman's sufferings put me in mind of +Harlequin's case, who was tickled to death. He tells us soon after, +through a small mistake of sorrow for rage, that during the whole +action he was so very sorry, that he thinks he could have attacked +half a score of the fiercest Mohawks in the excess of his grief. I +cannot but look upon it as a happy accident, that a man who is so +bloody-minded in his affliction, was diverted from this fit of +outrageous melancholy. The valour of this gentleman in his distress +brings to one's memory the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance, who +lays about him at such an unmerciful rate in an old romance. I shall +readily grant him that his soul, as he himself says, would have made a +very ridiculous figure, had it quitted the body and descended to the +poetical shades in such an encounter. + +"As to his conceit of tacking a tragic head with a comic tail, in +order to refresh the audience, it is such a piece of jargon, that I +don't know what to make of it. + +"The elegant writer makes a very sudden transition from the playhouse +to the church, and from thence to the gallows. + +"As for what relates to the church, he is of opinion that these +epilogues have given occasion to those merry jigs from the organ-loft, +which have dissipated those good thoughts and dispositions he has +found in himself, and the rest of the pew, upon the singing of two +staves culled out by the judicious and diligent clerk. + +"He fetches his next thought from Tyburn; and seems very apprehensive +lest there should happen any innovations in the tragedies of his +friend Paul Lorrain. + +"In the mean time, Sir, this gloomy writer, who is so mightily +scandalised at a gay epilogue after a serious play, speaking of +the fate of those unhappy wretches who are condemned to suffer an +ignominious death by the justice of our laws, endeavours to make +the reader merry on so improper an occasion by those poor burlesque +expressions of tragical dramas and monthly performances.--I am, +Sir, with great respect, your most obedient, most humble servant, + +"PHILOMEDES." + + + + +ON DRAMATIC CRITICS + +(_Addison in the "Spectator_") + +No. 592. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1714. + + "--Studium sine divite veni." + HOR. ARS POET. 409. + + "Art without a vein." + ROSCOMMON. + + +I look upon the playhouse as a world within itself. They have lately +furnished the middle region of it with a new set of meteors, in order +to give the sublime to many modern tragedies. I was there last winter +at the first rehearsal of the new thunder,[A] which is much more deep +and sonorous than any hitherto made use of. They have a Salmonus +behind the scenes who plays it off with great success. Their +lightnings are made to flash more briskly than heretofore; their +clouds are also better furbelowed, and more voluminous; not to mention +a violent storm locked up in a great chest, that is designed for the +"Tempest." They are also provided with above a dozen showers of snow, +which, as I am informed, are the plays of many unsuccessful poets +artificially cut and shredded for that use. Mr. Rymer's "Edgar" is to +fall in snow, at the next acting of "King Lear," in order to heighten, +or rather to alleviate, the distress of that unfortunate prince; and +to serve by way of decoration to a piece which that great critic has +written against. + +[Footnote A: Mr. Dennis's new and approved method of making thunder. +Dennis had contrived this thunder for the advantage of his tragedy of +"Appius and Virginia"; the players highly approved of it, and it is +the same that is used at the present day. Notwithstanding the effect +of this thunder, however, the play was coldy received, and laid aside. +Some nights after, Dennis being in the pit at the representation of +"Macbeth," and hearing the thunder made use of, arose from his seat in +a violent passion, exclaiming with an oath, that that was his thunder. +"See (said he) how these rascals use me: they will not let my play +run, and yet they steal my thunder."--"Notes on the _Spectator_."] + +I do not indeed wonder that the actors should be such professed +enemies to those among our nation who are commonly known by the name +of critics, since it is a rule among these gentlemen to fall upon a +play, not because it is ill written, but because it takes. Several of +them lay it down as a maxim, that whatever dramatic performance has a +long run, must of necessity be good for nothing; as though the first +precept in poetry were "not to please." Whether this rule holds good +or not, I shall leave to the determination of those who are better +judges than myself; if it does, I am sure it tends very much to the +honour of those gentlemen who have established it; few of their pieces +having been disgraced by a run of three days, and most of them being +so exquisitely written, that the town would never give them more than +one night's hearing. + +I have great esteem for a true critic, such as Aristotle and Longinus +among the Greeks; Horace and Quintilian among the Romans; Boileau and +Dacier among the French. But it is our misfortune, that some, who set +up for professed critics among us, are so stupid, that they do not +know how to put ten words together with elegance or common propriety; +and withal so illiterate, that they have no taste of the learned +languages, and therefore criticise upon old authors only at second +hand. They judge of them by what others have written, and not by any +notions they have of the authors themselves. The words unity, action, +sentiment and diction, pronounced with an air of authority, give them +a figure among unlearned readers, who are apt to believe they are very +deep because they are unintelligible. The ancient critics are full +of the praises of their contemporaries; they discover beauties which +escaped the observation of the vulgar, and very often find out reasons +for palliating and excusing such little slips and oversights as were +committed in the writings of eminent authors. On the contrary, most +of the smatterers in criticism, who appear among us, make it their +business to vilify and depreciate every new production that gains +applause, to descry imaginary blemishes, and to prove, by farfetched +arguments, that what pass for beauties in any celebrated piece are +faults and errors. In short, the writings of these critics, compared +with those of the ancients, are like the works of the sophists +compared with those of the old philosophers. + +Envy and cavil are the natural fruits of laziness and ignorance; which +was probably the reason that in the heathen mythology Momus is said +to be the son of Nox and Somnus, of darkness and sleep. Idle men, who +have not been at the pains to accomplish or distinguish themselves, +are very apt to detract from others; as ignorant men are very subject +to decry those beauties in a celebrated work which they have not eyes +to discover. Many of our sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the +name of critics, are the genuine descendants of these two illustrious +ancestors. They are often led into these numerous absurdities in which +they daily instruct the people, by not considering that, first, there +is sometimes a greater judgment shown in deviating from the rules of +art than in adhering to them; and, secondly, that there is more beauty +in the works of a great genius, who is ignorant of all the rules of +art, than in the works of a little genius, who not only knows but +scrupulously observes them. + +First, we may often take notice of men who are perfectly acquainted +with all the rules of good writing, and notwithstanding choose to +depart from them on extraordinary occasions. I could give instances +out of all the tragic writers of antiquity who have shown their +judgment in this particular; and purposely receded from an established +rule of the drama, when it has made way for a much higher beauty +than the observation of such a rule would have been. Those who have +surveyed the noblest pieces of architecture and statuary, both ancient +and modern, know very well that there are frequent deviations from +art in the works of the greatest masters, which have produced a much +nobler effect than a more accurate and exact way of proceeding could +have done. This often arises from what the Italians call the _gusto +grande_ in these arts, which is what we call the sublime in writing. + +In the next place, our critics do not seem sensible that there is more +beauty in the works of a great genius, who is ignorant of the rules of +art, than in those of a little genius who knows and observes them. It +is of those men of genius that Terrence speaks in opposition to the +little artificial cavillers of his time: + + "Quorum aemulari expotat negligentiam + Potius quam istorum obscuram diligentiam." + AND. PROL. 20. + +"Whose negligence he would rather imitate, than these men's obscure +diligence." + +A critic may have the same consolation in the ill success of his play +as Dr. South tells us a physician has at the death of a patient, +that he was killed _secundum artem_. Our inimitable Shakespeare is a +stumbling-block to the whole tribe of these rigid critics. Who would +not rather read one of his plays, where there is not a single rule of +the stage observed, than any production of a modern critic where there +is not one of them violated![A] Shakespeare was indeed born with all +the seeds of poetry, and may be compared to the stone in Pyrrhus's +ring, which, as Pliny tells us, had the figure of Apollo and the nine +Muses in the veins of it, produced by the spontaneous hand of Nature +without any help from art. + +[Footnote A: With all his fondness for classic models, Addison breaks +away from conventionality of form in this essay, and pays his tribute +to the genius of Shakespeare. But critical Joe could never forget the +bard's so-called "faults" of construction.] + + + + +THEATRICAL PROPERTY + +(_Steele in "The Tatler," No. 42_) + + +It is now twelve of the clock at noon, and no mail come in; therefore +I am not without hopes that the town will allow me the liberty +which my brother news-writers take in giving them what may be for +information in another kind, and indulge me in doing an act of +friendship, by publishing the following account of goods and +moveables. + +This is to give notice, that a magnificent palace, with great +variety of gardens, statues, and water works, may be bought cheap in +Drury-lane; where there are likewise several castles, to be disposed +of, very delightfully situated; as also groves, woods, forests, +fountains, and country-seats, with very pleasant prospects on all +sides of them; being the moveables of Christopher Rich, Esquire,[A] +who is breaking up house-keeping, and has many curious pieces of +furniture to dispose of, which may be seen between the hours of six +and ten in the evening. + +[Footnote A: This essay was written (July, 1709) at the time that +Drury Lane was closed, by order of the Lord Chamberlain.] + + +THE INVENTORY. + +Spirits of right Nantz brandy, for lambent flames and apparitions. + +Three bottles and a half of lightning. + +One shower of snow in the whitest French paper. + +Two showers of a browner sort. + +A sea, consisting of a dozen large waves; the tenth bigger than +ordinary, and a little damaged. + +A dozen and a half of clouds, trimmed with black, and well +conditioned. + +A rainbow, a little faded. + +A set of clouds after the French mode, streaked with lightning and +furbelowed. + +A new moon, something decayed. + +A pint of the finest Spanish wash, being all that is left of two +hogsheads sent over last winter. + +A coach very finely gilt, and little used, with a pair of dragons, to +be sold cheap. + +A setting-sun, a pennyworth. + +An imperial mantle, made for Cyrus the Great, and worn by Julius +Caesar, Bajazet, King Harry the Eighth, and Signor Valentini. + +A basket-hilted sword, very convenient to carry milk in. + +Roxana's night-gown. + +Othello's handkerchief. + +The imperial robes of Xerxes, never worn but once. + +A wild boar killed by Mrs. Tofts[A] and Dioclesian. + +[Footnote A: A favourite singer of the day.] + +A serpent to sting Cleopatra. + +A mustard-bowl to make thunder with. + +Another of a bigger sort, by Mr. D----'s[A] directions, little used. + +[Footnote A: John Dennis, the critic.] + +Six elbow-chairs, very expert in country dances, with six flower-pots +for their partners. + +The whiskers of a Turkish Pasha. + +The complexion of a murderer in a band-box; consisting of a large +piece of burnt cork, and a coal-black peruke. + +A suit of clothes for a ghost, viz., a bloody shirt, a doublet +curiously pinked, and a coat with three great eyelet-holes upon the +breast. + +A bale of red Spanish wool. + +Modern plots, commonly known by the name of trapdoors, ladders of +ropes, vizard-masques, and tables with broad carpets over them. + +Three oak-cudgels, with one of crab-tree; all bought for the use of +Mr. Pinkethman.[A] + +[Footnote A: The comedian.] + +Materials for dancing; as masques, castanets, and a ladder of ten +rounds. + +Aurengezebe's scymitar, made by Will Brown in Piccadilly. + +A plume of feathers, never used but by Oedipus and the Earl of Essex. + +There are also swords, halbards, sheep-hooks, cardinals' hats, +turbans, drums, gallipots, a gibbet, a cradle, a rack, a cart-wheel, +an altar, an helmet, a back-piece, a breast-plate, a bell, a tub, and +a jointed baby. + + + + +ACTORS AND AUDIENCE. + +(_From Cibber's "Apology_") + + +Among our many necessary reformations, what not a little preserved to +us the regard of our auditors was the decency of our clear stage, from +whence we had now for many years shut out those idle gentlemen who +seemed more delighted to be pretty objects themselves than capable of +any pleasure from the play; who took their daily stands where they +might best elbow the actor, and come in for their share of the +auditor's attention. In many a laboured scene of the wannest humour +and of the most affecting passion I have seen the best actors +disconcerted, while these buzzing muscatos have been fluttering round +their eyes and ears. How was it possible an actor, so embarrassed, +should keep his impatience from entering into that different temper +which his personated character might require him to be master of? + +Future actors may perhaps wish I would set this grievance in a +stronger light; and, to say the truth, where auditors are ill-bred, it +cannot well be expected that actors should be polite. Let me therefore +show how far an artist in any science is apt to be hurt by any sort of +inattention to his performance. + +While the famous Corelli,[A] at Rome, was playing some musical +composition of his own to a select company in the private apartment of +his patron-Cardinal, he observed, in the heighth of his harmony, +his Eminence was engaging in a detached conversation, upon which +he suddenly stopt short and gently laid down his instrument. The +Cardinal, surprised at the unexpected cessation, asked him if a string +was broke? To which Corelli, in an honest conscience of what was due +to his musick, reply'd, "No, Sir, I was only afraid I enterrupted +business." His Eminence, who knew that a genius could never shew +itself to advantage where it had not its regards, took this reproof in +good part, and broke off his conversation to hear the whole concerto +played over again. + +[Footnote A: Arcangelo Corelli, the "father of modern instrumental +music."] + +Another story will let us see what effect a mistaken offence of this +kind had upon the French theatre, which was told me by a gentleman of +the long robe, then at Paris, and who was himself the innocent author +of it. At the tragedy of "Zaire," while the celebrated Mademoiselle +Gossin[A] was delivering a soliloquy, this gentleman was seized with +a sudden fit of coughing, which gave the actress some surprise and +interruption; and his fit increasing, she was forced to stand silent +so long that it drew the eyes of the uneasy audience upon him, when a +French gentleman, leaning forward to him, asked him, If this actress +had given him any particular offence, that he took so publick an +occasion to resent it? The English gentleman, in the utmost surprise, +assured him, So far from it, that he was a particular admirer of +her performance; that his malady was his real misfortune, and if he +apprehended any return of it, he would rather quit his seat than +disoblige either the actress or the audience. + +[Footnote A: Jeanne, Catherine Gossin, of the Comedie Francaise.] + +This publick decency in their theatre I have myself seen carried so +far that a gentleman in their second Loge, or middle-gallery, being +observed to sit forward himself while a lady sate behind him, a loud +number of voices called out to him from the pit, "_Place a la +Dame! Place a la Dame_!" When the person so offending, either not +apprehending the meaning of the clamour, or possibly being some John +Trott who feared no man alive, the noise was continued for several +minutes; nor were the actors, though ready on the stage, suffered to +begin the play till this unbred person was laughed out of his seat, +and had placed the lady before him. + +Whether this politeness observed at plays may be owing to their clime, +their complexion, or their government, is of no great consequence; +but if it is to be acquired, methinks it is a pity our accomplished +countrymen, who every year import so much of this nation's gawdy +garniture, should not, in this long course of our commerce with them, +have brought over a little of their theatrical good-breeding too. + + + + +INDEX + + + Abington, Mrs. + Actors and audience, Colley Cibber on + Addison, Joseph + his "Cato" + Anne, Queen + Anne's reign, Life in Queen + Ashbury, Joseph + Ashton's "Reign of Queen Anne" + Aston, Tony + Attorneys of Queen Anne's day + + Baggs, Zachary + Baker of Dublin + Barry, Spranger, + Mrs. Spranger + Barry, Mrs. Elizabeth + Bartholomew Fair + Bath life + "Beaux' Stratagem," Farquhar's + Bellchambers, Edmund + Bertie, Miss Dye + Betterton, Thomas + Blackmore, Dr. (Sir Richard) + Boileau + Bolingbroke, Lord + Booth, Barton + Mrs. Barton + _see also_ Santlow + Boswell, James + Bowman, an actor + Bracegirdle, Anne + Bradshaw, Mrs. + Brett, Colonel + Miss Anne + Broschi, Carlo (Farinelli) + Budgell, Eustace + Bullock, an actor + Burney, Dr. + "Busiris," Young's + + Cadogan, Charles Sloane, 1st Earl + Campbell, Thomas + "Careless Husband," Cibber's + Cat, Christopher + Cat-calls + "Cato," Addison's + Centlivre, Mrs. + her "Perplexed Lovers" + Centlivre, Mr. + Charles II., King + Chener, Mons. + Chetwood, W.R. + "Christian Hero, The," Steele's + Church and stage + Church music and the theatre + Churchill, General (Marlborough's nephew) + Churchill, Colonel (Oldfield's son) + Churchill, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough + Churchill, Mary, Countess of Cadogan + Cibber, Caius Gabriel + Cibber, Colley + "Cibber, Apology for the Life of" + Cibber, Theophilus + Clive, Mrs. + Coffee-houses of Addison's day + Collier, William + Colman's "Random Records" + Congreve + Corelli, Arcangelo + Costumes, Stage + Courthorpe's "Addison" + Covent Garden Theatre + Craggs, Mr. Secretary + Crawley, the showman + Critics, Addison on dramatic + Crown, John + Cuzzoni, Francesca + + Davenant, Alexander + Davies, T. + Defoe, Daniel + Delany, Mrs. + Dennis, John, + "Essay on the Operas" + Diction of the eighteenth century + "Distressed Mother, The," Philips' + Dod, Benjamin + Dogget, Thomas + Doran, Dr. + Dorset, Earl of + Dorset, Garden Theatre + Downes, the prompter + Drama and the Restoration + Dramatic critics (Addison) + Dramatic writings, old and new + Drury Lane Theatre + Drury Lane, + revolt of Betterton + another exodus + riot + Drury Lane, Company + Dryden + "Duke of York's Company" + D'Urfey's "Western Lass" + + "Echoes of the Playhouse" + Elrington, Thomas + Epilogues, Comic (The _Spectator_) + Estcourt, Dick + Eugene, Prince + Evans, John + + "Fair Quaker of Deal," Shadwell's + Farinelli + Farquhar, Capt. George + Faustina, Bordoni Hasse + Fielding, Henry + Fitzgerald, Percy + Fontaine, Monsieur de la + Foote, Samuel + "Funeral, or Grief a la Mode, The," Steele's + Funeral customs, old time + + Gambling women + Garrick, David + Garth, Dr. + Genest, P. + George I., King + Gildon, Charles, + Gossin, Jeane Catherine + Gregory, Mr. + Griffith, Thomas + Gwyne, Nell + + Habits of society + Halifax, Lord + Haymarket Theatre, + restricted to operas + "Hearts, The King of," Maynwaring's + Hendon, Heywoodhill + Henley, Mr. + Hertford, Countess of + Hill, Aaron + Horton, Mrs. + Howard, Bronson + Hoyt, Mr. + Hughes, Mr. + Hulet, Charles + + Ibsen + "Inconstant, The," Farquhar's + Ingolsby, General + Italian opera + + "Jane Shore," Rowe's + Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster + Johnson, Dr. Samuel + Johnstone, Drury Lane machinist + Jones, Henry Arthur + Jonson, Benjamin + + Keen, Theophilus + Killigrew, Charles + "King's Company, The" + Kit-Cat Club + Knight, Mrs. + Knipp, Mrs. + + Lambro, Miss + Lecouvreur, French actress + Leigh, Francis + Lincoln's Inn Field Theatre of 1695, + re-opened + "Lives of the Poets," Cibber's + Lorrain, Rev. Paul + Lowe, R.W. + + Macclesfield, Anne, 1st Countess of + Macklin + "Make-up," Art of + Marlborough, _see_ Churchill + Master of the Revels, office of + Maynwaring, Arthur, + Maynwaring, Mr. (Oldfield's son) + "Milk White Flag, A," Mr. Hoyt's + Mills, John + Misson's, Henre, "Memoirs" + Mist, Nathaniel + _Mist's Weekly Journal_ + Mitford, M.R. + Mitre Tavern + Moliere + Montagu, Captain + Morley's "Notes on The _Spectator_" + Mountford, Will + Mountford, Mrs., _see_ Verbruggen + Mountford, Susan + + Neal, Edmund, "Phaedra and Hippolitus" + "Non-Juror, The," Cibber's + Norris, an actor + + Oldfield, Captain + Oldfield, Mrs. + Oldfield, Anne (Nance) + birth + meets Farquhar + introduced to Vanbrugh, + joins the stage + Bath _debut_ + first stage triumph + Cibber's "Careless Husband" her success + deportment + as Sylvia in Farquhar's "Recruiting Officer" + leaves Drury Lane for the Haymarket + supplants Mrs. Bracegirdle + salary at the Haymarket + ---- and at Drury Lane + as Andromache in "Distressed Mother" + plays Marcia in "Cato" + meets Alexander Pope + tragic parts + rivals produce a riot, her triumph + as Jane Shore + adheres to Drury Lane + takes Sophonisba, praised by Thomson + meridian lustre + mistress of A. Maynwaring + personal attractions + accepts protection of Marlborough's nephew + received at Court + her natural children + ancestress of Earls of Cadogan + sympathy for Richard Savage + intercedes for his life + mourned by Savage + contemporaries + her equipage + sweetness and common sense + retains her bloom + captivating as Lady Townley + moved in polite circles + ill-health, dies in Lower Grosvenor Street + laid in State in the Jerusalem Chamber + interred in Westminster Abbey + Oldfield, Anne, elegy by Richard Savage + Opera, Italian + Operatic singers + Oxford and the drama + actors contribute to St. Mary's restoration fund + + Page, Francis + Pepy's Diary + "Perplexed Lovers, The," Centlivre's + Philips, Ambrose + Players in Queen Anne's time + Pope, Alexander + Porter, Mistress + Powell, George + Prince George of Denmark + Pritchard, Sir William + "Provoked Husband, The," Vanbrugh and Cibber's + + Radcliffe, Dr. + "Recruiting Officer, The," Farquhar's + Rich, Christopher + Rich, John + Rivers, Lord + Rogers, Mrs. + Rowe, Nicholas + Russell Court Chapel + Ryan, Lacy + + Sandridge, Dean + Santlow, Hester + _see also_ Booth, Mrs. + Saunders, Mistress + Savage, Richard + Schlegel, Augustus Wm. + "Scornful Lady, The" + Shadwell, Thomas + Sheridan, Richard Brinsley + Side-shows + "Sir Courtly Nice," Crown's + "Sir Thomas Overbury," Savage's + Skipworth, Sir Thomas + Smith, an actor + _Spectator, The_ + Stage armies + Stanyan, T. + Steele, Sir Richard + Strolling players + Swift, Dean + Swiney, Owen + + "Tamerlane," N. Rowe's + "Tartuffe," Moliere's + Theatre and church + and playgoers + Theatrical dress + claptrap, Addison on + property, Sir R. Steele on + Theatricals began, Hour + Thomas, Augustus + Thomson's "Sophonisba" + Thurmond, John + Toasts + Toasting glasses + Tofts, Mrs. + Tonson, Jacob + Trumbull, Sir William + + Vanbrugh, Sir John + Verbruggen, Mrs. + Voltaire + Voss, Mrs. + + Walker, an actor + Walpole, Horace + Walpole, Sir Robert + Ward, Ned + Wig, cost of a full-bottomed + Wilks, Robert + William III., King + Williams, Joseph + Woffington, Peg + "Wonder, The," Mrs. Centlivre's + Woollen shrouds + + Yates, Mistress + Young's, Dr., "Busiris" + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PALMY DAYS OF NANCE OLDFIELD*** + + +******* This file should be named 11717.txt or 11717.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/7/1/11717 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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