Their Majesties' Servants. Annals of the English Stage (Volume 2 of 3)

Margaret Woffington, born in 1720,69 was very young when Madame Violante induced her mother to let her have the pretty child as a pupil. The foreign lady was of good repute, and Margaret became an apt pupil, performed little tricks while her mistress was on the rope, learned French thoroughly, and acquired graces of person, style, and carriage, by which she gained fortune, and reaped ruin.

As a child, she played Macheath,70 in Madame's booth, when the "Beggar's Opera" was acted there by children. From the age of seventeen to twenty, she was on the more regular Dublin stage, charming all eyes and hearts by her beauty, grace, and ability in a range of characters from Ophelia to Sir Harry Wildair.71 Rich at once engaged her, at a moderate salary, and, in 1740, brought her out, at Covent Garden, as Sylvia to Ryan's Plume and the younger Cibber's Brazen. A successful coup d'essai emboldened her to try Sir Harry. She played it night after night for weeks, and Wilks was forgotten. It is said she so enraptured one susceptible damsel, that the young lady, believing Sir Harry to be a man, made him an offer of marriage.

Walpole was among the last to be pleased. "There is much in vogue, a Mrs. Woffington," he writes, in 1741; "a bad actress, but she has life." Walpole's friend, Conway, confesses that "all the town was in love with her;" but to Conway's eyes she was only "an impudent Irish-faced girl." Even these fastidious gentlemen became converted, and, at a later period, Walpole records her excellent acting in Moore's "Foundling," with Garrick, Barry, and Mrs. Cibber.

Her Lothario was not so successful as her Sir Harry; but her high-born ladies, her women of dash, spirit, and elegance, her homely, humorous females, in all these she triumphed; and triumphed in spite of a voice that was almost unmanageable for its harshness.

Margaret and Garrick were very soon on very intimate terms. In the summer of 1742, they were together in Dublin, and on their return, according to a tradition of the stage, Garrick and Mrs. Woffington, living together, alternately supplied the expenses of the household, each being at the head of the latter during a month. In Garrick's term the table is said to have been but moderately furnished; whereas during the beautiful Margaret's month there was a banquet and brilliant company daily; all the fashionable men about town being delighted at an invitation from the Irish actress. Johnson used to be among those visitors, and he noticed the difference in the quality of the housekeeping, after his usual fashion. "Is not this tea stronger than usual, madam? It's as red as blood!"72 It was Margaret's month, and the liberal lady smiled.

That Garrick ever entertained thoughts of marrying Margaret, I very much doubt, despite the story, said to have been told by the lady to Murphy, that he had gone so far as to buy the wedding-ring, and try it on her finger. In the early part of the few years which elapsed between Garrick's début in London and his marriage with Eva Maria Violetti, he lived in such affectionate intimacy with the charming Irish actress, as to address to her the song beginning with

"Once more I'll tune the vocal shell,To hills and dales my passion tell,A flame which time can never quell,Which burns for you, my Peggy!"73

Notwithstanding this homage, the lady's infidelities were so numerous, that whatever may have been her wrath or disappointment, she had no right to expect that of so inconstant a mistress of one home, Garrick was likely to make the wife of another. However this may have been, it remains undeniable that Garrick preserved, to his last days, a pair of silver buckles which once belonged to that Peggy, who, from first to last, enthralled more hearts than any actress since the days of Elizabeth Barry; – from those of young fellows with the down just budding on their lips, to what was left of those of old Owen Mac Swiney and older Colley Cibber, between which two ancient danglers, people compared Margaret to Susanna between the two Elders.

In good truth, her company was sought after "by men of the first rank and distinction;" and "persons of the gravest character, and most eminent for learning," felt honoured by her acquaintance, and were charmed with her conversation. She founded her avowed preference of the company of men to that of women, on the alleged fact that the latter never talked but of satins and silks. She herself was endowed with a good understanding, which was much improved by contact with intellectual society, and by much reading. In short, it seems to have been impossible to resist this clever, vivacious, affable, and good-natured creature; one who laughed most unaffectedly at the joke which touched her own character nearest; whose errors are forgotten in her much-abounding and still-enduring charity, and who not only faithfully kept that part of the decalogue which says, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife," but provided a home for her neighbours' wives, through many generations, by building the asylum for them, which still exists at Teddington. "Mes enfans, sauvez-vous par la charité!"

Margaret Woffington was the most beautiful and the least vain of the women of her day. Whatever character she had to play, she identified herself therewith; and did it happen to be that of an old or ordinary woman, she descended to the level of circumstances, and hid every natural beauty beneath wrinkles and stolidity, according to the exigencies of the part.

Her sister, Mary Woffington, whom many living persons remember well, failed comparatively as an actress; but she achieved better fortune as a woman than her more able and attractive sister. By marriage she connected herself with Walpole's family, and Walpole, whose mother was the daughter of a timber-dealer, was disgusted.

"I have been unfortunate in my own family," says Walpole to Mann, in 1746; "my nephew, Captain Cholmondeley, has married a player's sister." This last was Mrs. Woffington's sister, Mary. Captain, subsequently the Reverend Robert Cholmondeley, was the second son of the Earl Cholmondeley, who obtained Houghton, by marrying Walpole's only legitimate sister, Mary. At the match between the captain and the player's sister the earl was greatly incensed, and he went to Mrs. Woffington to tell her as much. But Margaret so softened him by her winning ways, and won him by her good sense, and subdued him to her will, that he, at last, called her his "dear Mrs. Woffington," and declared that he was happy at his son's choice, in spite of his having been "so very much offended previously." This aroused Margaret's spirit a little. "Offended previously!" she exclaimed, "I have most cause to be offended now." "Why, dear lady?" asked the earl. "Because," replied the actress, "I had one beggar to support, and now I shall have two!"

Of this marriage, Mrs. Woffington lived to see five of the nine children born. One of these, married to Sir William Bellingham, Bart., carried the Woffington blood back to one of the oldest families in Ireland. Another of Margaret Woffington's nieces was Maid of Honour to the Princess of Wales; who, when driving with her royal mistress through Leatherhead, in 1806, was killed by the upsetting of the carriage. Mary Woffington (the Hon. Mrs. Cholmondeley) survived till 1811.

To see Margaret Woffington and Smith in Sylvia and Plume was an ecstasy, he being so graceful and vivacious, while she charmed her audiences in both the dresses worn by Sylvia, rendering, says the Dramatic Censor, "even absurdities pleasing by the elegance of her appearance and the vivacity of her expression." Mrs. Bellamy was so overcome by her acting Jocasta in that awful drama of "Œdipus," that she fainted on the stage when playing Eurydice to her. Some persons set this down to affectation; but George Anne was not a lady likely to affect a swoon for the sake of complimenting a rival actress.74

Mrs. Woffington was the only player who acted Sir Harry Wildair with the spirit and elegance of the original – Wilks, to whom Garrick and Woodward were, in this part, inferior. She was excellent in Lady Plyant, and admirable in the representation of females in high rank and of dignified elegance. Millamant, Lady Townley, Lady Betty Modish, and Maria, in the "Nonjuror," were exhibited by her with that happy ease and gaiety, and with such powerful attraction, that the excesses of these characters appeared not only pardonable, but agreeable.

Her Jane Shore did not admit of competition with Mrs. Oldfield's; but that and Hermione were full of merit notwithstanding. In male attire the elegance of her figure was most striking; but I cannot suppose that her Lady Randolph, of which she was the original representative in London, in any one point approached that of Mrs. Crawford (Barry), or of Mrs. Siddons. Indeed her voice unfitted her for tragic parts. She called it her "bad voice!"

Margaret Woffington's independence was one of the great traits in her character. About six years before Mrs. Cibber left the stage75 she was often too indisposed to act; and at short notice Mrs. Woffington was advertised to play some favourite part of her own instead. Once, when thus advertised, she pleaded illness, and would not go to the theatre. The next night, as Mrs. Woffington came on, as Lady Jane Grey, she was greeted with a hurricane of hisses for having failed to appear the evening before. They even called upon her to "beg pardon!" then her complexion glowed with angry beauty, her eyes flashed lightning, and she walked off the stage magnificently scornful. It was with great difficulty she was induced to return, and when she did, the imperious fair one calmly faced her excited audience with a "now then!" sort of look. She expressed her willingness to perform her duty, but it was for them to decide; "On or off; it must be as you please; to me it is a matter of perfect indifference!" The audience petted this wayward creature, and the contending parties were friends for ever after.

Margaret and Kitty Clive got on as ill together as the former and Mrs. Cibber. The green-room was kept alive by their retorts, joyous by their repartees, or uncomfortable by their dissensions. But there were no two dramatic queens who hated each other so cordially within the theatre as Margaret and George Anne Bellamy. In rivalry or opposition on the stage, they entered into the full spirit of their parts, felt all or more than they said, and not only handled their daggers menacingly, but losing control of temper sometimes, used them more vigorously than law or good manners would allow.

After a career in London of undiminished popularity, she passed over to Dublin for three seasons, 1751-54, where she was equally the popular idol, drew thousands of pounds, had a salary, first of £400, then of £800 for the season, was enthroned at the Beef Steak Club by Sheridan, addressed verses, free enough to be what they were not – her own, to the Lord Lieutenant, and altogether ruled "the court, the camp, and the grove." Victor extols all her tragic parts, save Jane Shore; and Mrs. Delaney confirms his account of her Lady Townley, as being better than any the town had seen since Mrs. Oldfield's time; adding, that she pronounced well, and spoke sensibly; but that her voice was not agreeable, and that her arms were ungainly. Of her Maria ("Nonjuror"), Mrs. Delaney says that the effect in Dublin was marred by the immoderate size of Mrs. Woffington's hoops!

It was at this time she took a step which was sharply canvassed, – that of forsaking the church in which she was born, and putting her arm, as it were, under that of Protestantism. She went a long way, and in strange companionship too, in order to take this step. She and Sheridan made a pleasant excursion, on the occasion, through Mullingar to Longford and Carrick on Shannon, and on, by Lough Allen and Drumshamboe, till they stood on the verge of the Pot of the Shannon.

Murphy fancies that as Roman Catholics could not then legally wear a sword, she renounced her old faith that she might carry one, in male characters, without offending the law! This is sheer nonsense.76 But whatever took her to the little village on the mountain side, it is impossible to conceive a more striking contrast than the one between this magnificent district, where occasionally an eagle may be seen sweeping between Quilca and Sliev na Eirin, with Covent Garden or Smock Alley! I do not know if at that period, as till lately, the Primate of Ireland had a little shooting-box on a platform of the mountain, but to the modest residence still existing of the Protestant pastor, Sheridan and Margaret took their way; and there the brilliant lady enrolled herself as a member of the church by law established. The influences which moved her to this were simply that she would not lose her chance of an estate for the sake of the old religion in which she had been baptized. Her ex-admirer, Mac Swiney, had left her heiress to his estate of £200 a year; and that the bequest might be legal, and the succession uncontested, the frail Margaret qualified for prospective fortune by declaring herself a Protestant, in the presence of competent witnesses.

She returned to the "Garden" in the season 1754-55, going through all her best characters in that, and the two succeeding, and her final seasons. The last male part she acted was Lothario; the last original part she created was Lady Randolph (which, however, had been previously played in Edinburgh by Mrs. Ward), and in Rosalind, paralysis put an end to her professional career. Just previously, her Lothario had not been highly esteemed; and Barry, in the memorable suit of white puckered satin, had produced all the effect in "Douglas." This affected her spirits. Then she was annoyed at young Tate Wilkinson, whom Foote had just brought on the stage, and who had audaciously imitated the worst parts of Margaret's voice. Almost the only unkind act that can be laid to Mrs. Woffington's charge, was her consequent attempt to induce Rich not to enter into an engagement with Wilkinson. Her scorn drove the unfortunate young gentleman, for his story was a sad one, from the green-room, despite the interference of Shuter. One night, as she was playing Clarissa in the "Confederacy," she saw Wilkinson in a stage-box with Captain Forbes, and unable to control her rage, she came close to the box, and absolutely made him shrink back by the sneering sarcasm with which she flung at him one of her speeches. A rude woman in the box above mimicked her peculiar voice so well, as Clarissa turned away, that Mrs. Woffington thought it came from Wilkinson. That night she swept through the green-room, a beautiful fury, and the next day, at Rich's levee, she assailed Tate with terrible eloquence, prophesied evil to him, wished the evil she prophesied, and altogether manifested little of the kindly nature which was, in truth, her own.

Soon followed thereon the fatal 3d of May 1757. The play was "As You Like It," in which she acted Rosalind. Young Tate Wilkinson was standing at the wing as she passed on to the stage, and on her way she complimented him, ironically, on his recent success as a debutant. Wilkinson watched and studied her throughout the piece, till she came off early in the fifth act, and suddenly complained of being ill. Wilkinson offered his arm, leaning on which she retired to the green-room, rallied, went on, changed her dress, again trod the stage, defiantly of fate, and again yielded to the coming blow; but only for a moment. Once more she recovered, her self-will being so great, and she began the lines of the epilogue. She had just uttered, with fearful gaiety, the words: – "If I were among you, I'd kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me – ," when that once saucy tongue became paralysed. A last flash of courage impelled her to an attempt to proceed; but it was vain, and at the sense that she was stricken, she flung up her hands, uttered a wild shriek in abject terror, and staggering towards the stage door, fell into the arms stretched to receive her; and amid indescribable confusion of cheering and commiserating cries, Margaret Woffington disappeared from the stage, for ever.

In November of that year, a fine gentleman asked, "What has become of Mrs. Woffington?" "She has been taken off by Colonel Cæsar," answered another fine gentleman. "Reduced to aut Cæsar aut nullus," said the smart Lord Tyrawley. "She is gone to be married," said Kitty Clive; "Colonel Cæsar bought the license at the same time Colonel Mostyn bought his." At this time, poor Margaret, in the meridian of her beauty, somewhat weary of her calling, ashamed, it is said, of her life, was slowly dying at "Teddington, in Twickenhamshire," as Walpole loved to call it. So slowly, that the end did not come till 1760.

In the interval, Margaret Woffington is said to have lived to good purpose. Unreasonably exalted as her character has been, it is impossible to contemplate it at its close without respect. Charity, good works, sorrow for the past, hope, – all the Magdalen was there in that beautiful wreck. In a playful time she and Colonel Cæsar had agreed that the survivor of the two should be the heir of the other; but Margaret would not let a jest do injury to her family and to the poor. Of her few thousands, she left the greater part to her sister; her mother she had pensioned and protected; to the poor of Teddington, among whom she reposes, she left well-endowed almshouses. The poor, at least, may bless the memory of that once bright young creature, whom Madame Violante saw drawing water from the Liffey.

Those almshouses form a better relic of Margaret Woffington than the poor stage-jewels which her dresser, Mrs. Barrington, a respectable actress, hoped to inherit. These were claimed by, and surrendered to, the Hon. Mrs. Cholmondeley, and were carried to Ireland by that lady's daughter, on her marriage with Sir William Bellingham.

Such is the story of one, of whom an anonymous contemporary has written, – "Mrs. Woffington is a downright cheat, a triumphant plagiary. She first steals your heart, and then laughs at you as secure of your applause. There is such a prepossession arises from her form; such a witchcraft in her beauty, and to those who are personally acquainted with her, such an absolute command, from the sweetness of her disposition, that it is almost impossible to criticise upon her." With this criticism, I leave Margaret Woffington to the tender judgment of all gentle readers.

But while Margaret Woffington is slowly dying, here is a funeral passing through Berkeley Square. "Mr. Colley Cibber" is the name often pronounced in the crowd. It is one of which we have, for some time, lost sight; let us return to it, before we pass on to that of other conspicuous men.

CHAPTER XIII

COLLEY CIBBER

In the year 1671, the coffee-house politicians, the fine gentlemen, the scholars, and the gossips generally, were in no lack of themes for discussion. In Bow Street, the quidnuncs congratulated themselves, from April to December, at the resolution of the Commons, whose members had rebuked the Lords for daring to alter an impost laid on sugar, to the effect that in all aids given to the King by the Commons, the tax levied might be agreed to, but it could not be altered by the Lords. Knots of shabby-looking clergymen were constantly to be seen in Mr. Brent, the mercer's, shop, discussing the arrangements just made for the sustenance of London incumbents, burnt out by the Great Fire. Upstairs, in the long-room over Mr. Brent's shop, the "wits' room" at Wills', the company never wearied of hearing Major Mohun, the actor, speak of Lord Fairfax who was just dead. There was much gossip, too, both there and about town, touching my Lord Manchester, lately deceased, the parliamentary general who had helped to restore monarchy. If he was the servant of two masters, some persons thought he had been sufficiently punished by being the husband of five wives. The critics were more genially engaged in canvassing the merits of Casaubon, the learned prebendary of Canterbury, who had recently laid aside his critical acumen with his mortal coil. The artists were canvassing the merits of a monument which was that year beginning to rear its head on Fish Street Hill. The architect was Sir Christopher Wren. A foreign sculptor from Holstein was, at that moment, preparing designs for the basso relievo now on the pedestal. This sculptor lived in Southampton Street, Bloomsbury, where, on the 6th of November 1671, while arranging the completion of his figures, his lady upstairs, – she was of a cavalier family, and had the blood of William of Wyckham in her veins, – presented him with a living figure, the counterfeit presentment of its father. The child thus born, as it were, with the London Monument, was named Colley Cibber.

How Colley fared at school, stood his own ground, and was envied by the dunces he beat, in a double sense, – how he was determined to succeed in life, and did succeed, and was therefore denounced, as an ass or a knave, by those who failed, or who hated him for his success, or who feared the sarcasms which he himself delivered, without fear, – is known to us all.

The success of Colley Cibber, throughout life, may be ascribed to three circumstances; the acuteness with which he detected opportunity, the electric rapidity with which he seized it, and the marvellous unerring tact by which he turned it to profit. By this he was distinguished, despite some easy negligence and luxurious idleness, from his earliest days; and from his first to his last consequent triumph, he paid for each in the malevolence of those who envied him his victories and denied his merit.

When a lad at Grantham Free School, he alone accepted the magisterial proposal to compose a funeral oration, in honour of the dead king, Charles II. He gained such glory by his achievement that his fellows sent him to Coventry. For succeeding better than any of them in writing an ode in honour of the new King, an ode which he modestly owns to have been as execrable as anything he composed half a century later, when poet-laureate, they ostracised the bard whom they could not equal in song. Colley was satisfied with his glory, and treated his young adversaries with all the mingled good-nature and audacity with which he subsequently treated his better armed enemy, Mr. Pope.

When he "met the Revolution," in 1688, at Nottingham, failing to obtain military employment, he gladly availed himself of an opportunity to wait behind Lady Churchill's chair, as she sat at table with the Princess Anne. Half a hundred years later he refers to the friend he acquired by thus performing lacquey to her; and he happily caps a climax of glorious compliment to the then Duchess of Marlborough, by flatteringly alluding to something that pleasantly distinguished her above all the women of her time, – a distinction which she received not from earthly sovereigns, but "from the Author of Nature;" that of being "a great grandmother without grey hairs."

He failed, indeed, in obtaining a commission, as he did in an attempt to enter the Church; but for those failures Cibber was, in no wise, responsible. Had he grasped a pair of colours we should have heard of him, honourably, in Flanders. Had he received ordination, he would at least have as well known how to push his way as the reverend Philip Bisse, who kissed the Countess of Plymouth in the dark, affecting to take her for a maid of honour, and who thereby gained that lively widow for a wife, and through her the bishoprics, successively, of St. Davids and Hereford.

Colley being alike debarred from ascending the pulpit, or leading to the imminently deadly breach, turned to the sock and buskin, alternately donning the one or the other, for nothing; but watching his opportunity, and never failing to take advantage of it. He gladly, after a term of hungry probation, accepted the little part of the Chaplain, in the "Orphan;" and when the old comedian Goodman swore there was the stuff for the making of a good actor in the young fellow, the tears came into Cibber's eyes; but they were tears of joy, for he recognised that his good time had commenced, and he watched opportunity more indefatigably than ever.

Meanwhile he was happy on ten, and fifteen shillings a week, with food, and raiment, and lodging, under his father's roof, and an ardent desire that he might one day play lover to Mrs. Bracegirdle. When the ambitious young fellow had induced his sire to allow him £20 a year, in addition to the £1 a week which he then gained on the stage, Colley made love to a young lady off the stage, and married at the age of twenty-two. He and his wife were as happy as any young couple that ever took a leap in the dark. This is his own testimony; but beyond that darkness he looked eagerly, watching still for opportunity. It came when Congreve's "Double Dealer" was to be played before Queen Mary. Kynaston had fallen suddenly ill, and who could learn and play the part of Lord Touchwood in a few hours? Congreve looks at Cibber, and the young actor looks confidently at Congreve. He undertakes the task, fired by the thought of promotion, and of performing before a crowned head. His success was perfect. Congreve was delighted, and the salary of the ecstatic comedian was raised some few shillings a week. His young wife danced round him for joy at this glimpse of Golconda. The company of actors began to dislike him, after the fashion of his Grantham schoolfellows.