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

On the 12th of January 1736, the great attempt was made, and Mrs. Cibber came out as Zara, to the Lusignan of Milward, the Nerestan of her husband, and the Selima of Mrs. Pritchard, who had not yet reached the position which this young actress occupied at a bound, but beyond which Mrs. Pritchard was destined yet to go.

For fourteen consecutive nights, Susanna drowned houses in tears, and stirred the very depths of men's hearts, even her husband's, who was so affected that he claimed, and obtained, the doubling of the salary first agreed on for his wife. Theophilus, of course, did not keep the money; he spent it all, to his great, temporary, satisfaction. His wife's next appearance was in comedy, – Indiana ("Conscious Lovers"), where the neat simplicity of her manners, and the charm which she seemed to shed on even commonplace expressions, formed a strong contrast to the more solemn but stilted dignity of her tragedy queens, the glory of which faded before the perfection of her Ophelia. For this character, her voice, musical qualities, her figure, and her inexpressibly sweet features, all especially suited her. Wilkinson states that no eloquence could paint her distressed and distracted look, when she said: "Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be!" Charming in all she undertook, all her critics pronounced her unapproachable in Ophelia, and through all the traditions of the stage, there is not one more abiding than that which says that Mrs. Cibber was identified with the distraught maiden. Her Juliet, Constance, Belvidera, exhibited rare merits, while as Alicia, in the mad scene, "the expression of her countenance, and the irresistible magic of her voice, thrilled to the very soul of her whole audience," says Murphy. Wilkinson was powerless when attempting to mimic the voice and expression of Mrs. Cibber. The tone, manner, and method of Garrick, Quin, Mrs. Bellamy, Mrs. Crawford (Barry), nay, even the very face of Mrs. Woffington, he could reproduce with wonderful approach to exactness. But Mrs. Cibber's excellence baffled him. He remembered her and it, but he could not do more than remember. "It is all in my mind's eye," he would say, with a sigh at his incapacity.

In fine ladies and in sprightly comedy, – save in the playful delivery of epilogues, – Mrs. Cibber comparatively failed. Among her original characters were the Lady, in "Comus," Sigismunda, Arpasia, in Johnson's "Irene," Zaphira, in "Barbarossa," and Cœlia, in Whitehead's comedy, the "School for Lovers." In these, as in all she played, I collect from various sources, that Mrs. Cibber was distinguished for unadorned simplicity, artless sensibility, harmony of voice, now sweetly plaintive, now grandly powerful, and eyes that in tender grief seemed to swim in tears; in rage, to flash with fire; in despair, to become as dead. Her beauty did not so much consist in regularity of feature as in variety and power of expression; with this, she had symmetry of form: and this, indeed, is true beauty. She preserved these gifts which age lightly touched, and to the last it was impossible to look at her figure and not think her young, or view her face and not consider her handsome.

Mrs. Cibber would, perhaps, have been one of the happiest women of her day, had she not been cursed with a husband who was no more made for her than Caliban for Miranda. Theophilus could not appreciate her but as a gold winner, and he so abused the treasure, of which he was every way unworthy, as to expose her to temptations by which that unhanged villain hoped to profit; but by yielding to which she got rid of her "most filthy bargain," lost nothing in the public esteem, and acquired a protector and a home, – neither of which she ought to have wanted. There she enjoyed all the becomingnesses of life, save one; and she continued to act with better heart, but under physical infirmities, which her physicians could not understand, nor her applauding audiences believe in, till death struck her down in the very midst of her labours.

She was not only of good heart to the last, but apparently as little affected by age as by her domestic trials. She wore spectacles? Yes! I confess that much. There she sits, somewhat past fifty, at Garrick's house, spectacles on nose, reading her part of Cœlia, in the "School for Lovers." Now Cœlia is but sixteen, and some one suggests, only seeing those spectacles, that it would be better to call her at least twenty-three. Mrs. Cibber looked up smilingly through her "glasses," quietly dissented, and when the piece was acted, she played the young and gentle Cœlia with such effect, that no one present thought of Mrs. Cibber being older than the part represented her to be.

King George III. has the reputation of having killed Mrs. Cibber, indirectly. His Majesty commanded the "Provoked Wife," in which she was to play Lady Brute. Ill health, for which physicians could not account, had reduced her strength; but the Roman Catholic actress was determined to perform the duty expected from her, to that most Protestant King. But she never trod the stage again. The career which had commenced in 1732, closed in January 1766;92 and in the month following all that was mortal of this once highly, but, perhaps, fatally gifted lady, was entombed in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, not within the edifice, like Mrs. Oldfield, opposite Congreve's monument, but in the cloisters, whither had preceded her Aphra Behn, Mrs. Bracegirdle, and the father of the restored English stage, "Mr. Betterton, gentleman." Rather more than seven years had then elapsed since Theophilus Cibber had gone down, twelve fathoms deep, to the bottom of the Irish sea; and about the same time, short of a month or so, had gone by since Colley Cibber had been brought hither to rest in the neighbourhood of defunct, but once real, kings and queens.

The voice of Mrs. Cibber, the soul of Mrs. Pritchard, and the eye of Garrick, formed a combination which in one actor would, according to Walpole, render him superior to all actors the world had seen or could see. Hitherto it has not been seen.

Gentle as Mrs. Cibber was, she could master Garrick himself. "She was the greatest female plague belonging to my house," he once said, with the memory on him of the strong language of Kitty Clive, and the rough thrusts of other heroines. These he could parry, but not Susanna Cibber. "Whatever her object, a new part or a new dress, she was always sure to carry her point by the acuteness of her invention, and the steadiness of her perseverance."

Her misfortunes in life brought some affronts upon her. Thus, in October 1760, she was at Bath, with Mr. Sloper, the "protector" of whom I have spoken, and their daughter, "Miss Cibber." The whole party went to the Rooms, where the young lady was led out to dance. She was followed by another couple, of whom the lady protested against Miss Cibber being allowed to dance there at all. There would have been more modesty in this second young lady if she had been silent. There ensued a fracas, of course. Mrs. Delaney, in a letter to Mrs. Dewes, says that "Mr. Cibber" collared Mr. Collett, abused him, and asked if he had caused this insult to be put on his daughter? Mr. "Sloper" must be meant, for Theophilus was then dead. The affront was the result of directions given by that very virtuous personage, Beau Nash, then being wheeled about the room. Some discourse was held with the shattered beau, but nothing came of it; and pretty Miss Cibber never danced, or was asked to dance, at Bath again. This brings us back to the mother, from whom I am pleased to part with a pleasanter incident. Dr. Delaney once sat enraptured, as he listened to her at Dublin, singing in the "Messiah;" and, as she ceased, he could not help murmuring on behalf of the accomplished singer, "Woman, thy sins be forgiven thee!" Amen! And so passes away "the fair Ophelia," in that character, at least, never to be equalled.

From Scotland Yard, where she died, the way was not long to Westminster Abbey Cloisters. With what rites she was committed to the earth, I cannot say; but a paper on the doors of the Roman Catholic Chapel, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, that day, requested you, "of your charity," to "pray for the soul of Mrs. Susanna Maria Cibber!"

Amen again! She was a woman more sinned against than sinning, and so well respected, that Mr. and Mrs. Garrick visited her and Mr. Sloper at the country house of the latter, at Woodhay; where Ophelia taught her parrot snatches of old tragedy, and exhibited the bird to her laughing friends. The highest salary this "Tragic Muse" ever received was £600 for sixty nights; and this £10 per night was often earned under such tremor and suffering, that Mrs. Cibber would exclaim, with the applause ringing in her ears, "Oh! that my nerves were made of cart-ropes!" But we must leave her, for an actor who re-enters, and an actress who departs.

CHAPTER XVII

REAPPEARANCE OF SPRANGER BARRY – RETIREMENT OF MRS. PRITCHARD

After playing some nights at the Opera House, in 1766, and with Foote at the little house in the Haymarket, where Thalia and Melpomene reigned on alternate nights, in 1767, Barry and Mrs. Dancer, – the former after an absence of ten years, – appeared at Drury Lane, in October of the last-named year. Direct rivalry with Garrick there was none: for the latter and Mrs. Pritchard acted together on one night; Barry and Mrs. Dancer played their favourite characters the next; while King, Dodd, Palmer, Parsons, Mrs. Abington, Mrs. Clive, and Miss Pope, led in comedy. The two great tragedians acted in the same company till 1774, when Barry passed to Covent Garden, where he remained till his death, in 1777, – a few months only before that of Woodward, and about half a year subsequent to the retirement of Garrick, from Drury Lane and the stage.

"I hear the stage in England is worse and worse," wrote Fox to Fitzpatrick, from Nice in 1768. I do not know what foundation there was for such a report, save that the school of sentimental comedy had then come in and established itself, – the founder being Kelly, an honest, clever, Irish ex-staymaker, and his essay being made with "False Delicacy" (Cecil, King; Lady Betty Lambton, Mrs. Abington). Mrs. Pritchard, too, had then just retired, leaving the tragic throne to be contended for by Mrs. Yates and Mrs. Dancer, who subsequently reigned as Mrs. Barry, and who, as Mrs. Crawford, was finally superseded by Mrs. Siddons.

So firmly as well as suddenly had sentimental comedy come into fashion, that when Goldsmith's "Good-Natured Man" (Croaker, Shuter; Honeywood, Powell – who disliked his part; Miss Richland, Mrs. Bulkley) was produced in 1768, at Covent Garden, it nearly failed, through the scene of the bailiffs, which was considered too farcical for genteel comedy! The age was rapidly becoming almost too fastidious. The reaction was carrying it too far; and the moral Mrs. Sheridan's first comedy, "The Dupe," was condemned,93 for offences which it was said to contain against decorum. Even Johnson disapproved of the bailiffs, in Goldsmith's comedy, though he was the first to enjoy the rich humour of the lower characters in "She Stoops to Conquer." The sage did not spare sarcasm. "Are you going to make a scholar of him?" asked Goldsmith, in reference to the petted boy who waited on Johnson. "Aye, sir," was the reply, "scholar enough to write a bailiff scene in a comedy!"

Garrick now rested entirely on his old triumphs; but he acted repeatedly with Mrs. Barry. Romeo dropped from the repertory of Garrick and Barry; but Lear and Macbeth were played by each of them to the Cordelia and Lady of Barry's wife, whose versatility was remarkable, for she was the first, the best, and the richest-brogued of Widow Bradys, as she was the most touching and dignified of Lady Randolphs. As Lord and Lady Townley, the Barrys drew great houses; but Garrick was not disturbed, for his Ranger and his Hamlet drew greater still; and none of the original characters played by Barry during this, his last engagement at Drury Lane, reached a popularity which could ruffle Garrick's peace of mind. These were Rhadamistus, in "Zenobia;" Ronan, in "Fatal Discovery;" Tancred, in "Almida;" Timon, in Cumberland's version of "Timon of Athens;" Aubrey, in the "Fashionable Lover;" Evander (to his wife's Euphrasia), in the "Grecian Daughter;" Melville, in the "Duel;" and Seraphis, in "Sethona." Of these, Evander showed the actor's mastery over the feelings of his audience; Aubrey was distinguished for its grave, and Melville for its touching, dignity. With his admirers, he was still the "silver-tongued Barry," and the "silver-toned lover;" but the thick-and-thin adherents to Garrick repeated these phrases satirically, in allusion only to the silversmith, who was Spranger Barry's father.

Voltaire had written a criticism against Shakspeare's Hamlet, which Garrick adopted; and, mangling the bard whom he professed to love, he put "Hamlet" on the stage without the Grave-diggers and without Osrick! This mutilation passed for Shakspeare, until John Bannister restored the original, on playing the Dane, for his own benefit, in 1780. Yet, so irreverent to the spirit of Garrick did this proceeding seem to old Wrighton, that when Bannister came off the stage, the elder player said to him: "Well, sir, if ever you should meet with Mr. Garrick in the next world, you will find that he will never forgive you for having restored the Grave-diggers to Hamlet!"94

The most serious event, however, of this time, was the retirement of Mrs. Pritchard – a more serious loss to the stage, perhaps, than the death of Mrs. Cibber. She had well earned repose, after five-and-thirty years of most arduous labour.

In 1733, Mrs. Pritchard, a young and well-reputed married woman, was acting at our suburban fairs, but how much earlier, as Miss Vaughan, does not appear. Her slender cultivation, or rather her total want of education, is no proof that she was not of a respectable family; and the pertinacity of her brother, a clever low comedian, Henry Vaughan, in pursuing a claim to property left by a relative, Mr. Leonard, of Lyon's Inn, shows that there was one quality connected with the family which the world respects.

Mrs. Pritchard did not at once win, but long worked for her fortune. Her husband held a subordinate post in the theatre, till her talents raised him above it. Her history, in one point, resembles Betterton's; it was a life of pure, honest, unceasing labour; she was too busy to afford much material for further record. In another point, it resembled Mrs. Betterton's, in the unobtrusive virtue of her character. While Margaret Woffington was pretending to lament over the temptations to which she yielded, and George Anne Bellamy yielded without lamenting, honest Mrs. Pritchard neither yielded nor lamented. It is true, she was not so inexpressibly beautiful as Margaret, not so saucily seductive as George Anne, but she carried with her the lustre of rectitude, and the beauty of honesty and truth; living, she was welcomed wherever virtue kept home; and dying, she left fairly-acquired wealth, a good example, and an irreproachable name to her children.

At first she fought her way very slowly, but played everything, from Nell to Ophelia; and throughout her career she originated every variety of character, from Selima, in "Zara," to Tag, in "Miss in her Teens;" from Mrs. Beverley, in the "Gamester," to Clarinda, in the "Wedding Day;" from Hecuba to Mrs. Oakley.

We are so familiar with the prints of her as Hermione and Lady Macbeth, and to hear of her awful power in the latter, as well as of the force and dignity of her Merope, Creusa, and Zara, her almost too loud excess of grief in Volumnia, and the absolute perfection of her two queens, Katherine and Gertrude, that we are apt to remember her as a tragedian only. Her closet-scene, as the queen in "Hamlet," was so fine and finished in every detail that its unequalled excellence remains a tradition of the stage, like the Ophelia of Mrs. Cibber. There was a slight tendency to rant,95 and some lack of grace in her style, which, according to others, marred her tragedy. On the other hand, there is no dispute as to her excellence in comedy, particularly before she grew stout; and, indeed, in spite of her becoming so, as in Millamant, in which, even in her latest years, her easy manner of speaking and action charmed her audience, though elegance of form and the beauty of youth were no longer there.

As a perfectly natural actress, she was admirable in such parts as Mrs. Oakley, Doll Common, and the Termagant, in the "'Squire of Alsatia." With such characters she identified herself. I find her less commended in artificial ladies like Clarissa and Lady Dainty; and for queens of fashion, like Lady Townley and Lady Betty Modish. Yet, although she only pleased in these high-bred personages, she was "inimitably charming" in Rosalind and Beatrice, in Estifania and Clarinda, in Mrs. Sullen and Lady Brute; and in all characters of intrigue, gaiety, wit, playfulness, and diversity of humour. I may sum up all by repeating that her distinguishing qualities were natural expression, unembarrassed deportment, propriety of action, and an appropriateness of delivery which was the despair of all her contemporaries, for she took care of her consonants, and was so exact in her articulation, that, however voluble her enunciation, the audience never lost a syllable of it. Mrs. Pritchard and Mrs. Abington were selected, at various periods, to represent the Comic Muse, and nothing can better indicate their quality and merits.

Garrick, Quin, Mrs. Cibber, and Mrs. Pritchard, acting in the same piece, at Covent Garden! No wonder that Walpole, in 1746, says, "Plays only are in fashion," and calls the company, which included Woodward, Ryan, and Mrs. Horton, as "the best company that, perhaps, ever were together." In Mrs. Pritchard's Beatrice, as in Mrs. Clive's Bizarre, Garrick, as Benedict to the first, and Duretete to the second, had an antagonism on the stage which tested his utmost powers. Each was determined to surpass the other; but Walpole intimates that Mrs. Pritchard won in her contest, and states that Garrick hated her because her Beatrice (which he preferred to Miss Farren's) had more spirit and originality than his Benedict. Walpole also praised her Maria ("Nonjuror"), and only smiled at her Jane Shore when she had become so fat, that for her to talk of the pangs of starvation seemed ridiculous. But the highest mark of his, never easily won, estimation of this great actress consisted in his refusal to allow his "Mysterious Mother" to be acted, as Mrs. Pritchard was about to leave the stage, and there was no one else who could play the Countess.

Walpole knew her as a neighbour as well as a player, for Mrs. Pritchard purchased Ragman's Castle, a villa on the Thames, between Marble Hill and Orleans House, which she bought against an opposing bidder, Lord Lichfield, and resided in it till Walpole took it of her, for his niece, Lady Waldegrave. The actress was occasionally his guest, and he testifies to the becomingness and propriety of her behaviour; but sneers a little at that of her son, the Treasurer of Drury Lane, as being better than he had expected.

Johnson said that it was only on the stage Mrs. Pritchard was inspired with gentility and understanding; but Churchill exclaims,

"Pritchard, by Nature for the stage designed,In person graceful, and in sense refined,Her wit, as much as Nature's friend became,Her voice as free from blemish as her fame,Who knows so well in Majesty to please,Attempered with the graceful charms of ease?"

And contrasting her great qualities with the increasing figure which, perhaps, offended, in her later years, "the eye's too curious sense," Churchill adds,

"But when perfections of the mind break forth,Honour's chaste sallies, judgment's solid worth,When the pure, genuine flame by Nature taught,Springs into sense and every action's thought,Before such merit all objections fly,Pritchard's genteel, and Garrick six feet high."

I believe that the French actress, Rachel, was so ignorant of the true history of that which she represented, that, to her, all the events, in the various pieces in which she played, happened in the same comfortable chronological period "once upon a time." One of the greatest actresses of the Garrick period, in some respects perhaps the greatest, was equally ignorant. Mrs. Pritchard, it is said, had never read more of the tragedy of "Macbeth" than her own part, as it was delivered to her in manuscript, by the prompter, to be got "by heart." Quin was nearly as ignorant, if a questionable story may be credited. Previously to Garrick's coming, the "Macbeth" which was played as Shakspeare's was really Davenant's, with Locke's music. When Garrick announced that, for the future, he would have Shakspeare's tragedy and not Davenant's opera acted, no man was more surprised than Quin; "Why!" he exclaimed, "do you mean to say that we have not been playing Shakspeare all this while?" Quin had less excuse than Mrs. Pritchard, – for how was that poor lady – "the inspired idiot," Johnson styled her – a strange sort of person, who called for her "gownd," but whose acquired eloquence was beautiful and appropriate, – how was poor Mrs. Pritchard to know anything of the chronology of the story, when Garrick played the Thane in a modern gold-laced suit, and she herself might have called on the Princess Amelia, in her dress for the Thane's wife? Nevertheless, the incomparable two were as triumphant as if they had been dressed according to time and place. Nor were they less so in two other characters which they dressed to the full as much out of propriety, though not of grace, – namely, Benedict and Beatrice.

I have alluded to the essay made by Miss Pritchard. Let me add that when the young lady first appeared as Juliet, Mrs. Pritchard as her mother, Lady Capulet, led her on the stage. The scenes between them were heightened in interest, for Lady Capulet hovered about Juliet with such maternal anxiety, and Juliet appealed by her looks so lovingly to her mother, for a sign of guidance or approval, that many of the audience were moved to tears.

The house was moved more deeply still on an after night, – the 24th of April 1768, – the night of Mrs. Pritchard's final farewell, when Garrick played Macbeth in a brown court suit, laced with gold, and she the "lady," with a terrible power and effect such as even the audiences in those days were little accustomed to. Her "Give me the daggers!" on that night was as grand as her "Are you a man?" and when the curtain descended, such another intellectual treat was not looked for in that generation.

There was a "tremendous house," to which she tremblingly delivered a poetical address, written by Garrick, in which she said —

"In acted passion tears must seem to flow,But I have that within that passeth show."

Her old admirers stood by their allegiance, and even Mrs. Siddons' Lady Macbeth, in long after years, could not shake it. Lord Harcourt, no lukewarm friend of Mrs. Siddons, missed in her Lady Macbeth "the unequalled compass and melody of Mrs. Pritchard." In the famous sleep-walking scene, his lordship still held Mrs. Siddons to be inferior, – there was not the horror in the sigh, nor the sleepiness in the tone, nor the articulation in the voice, as in Mrs. Pritchard's, whose exclamation of "Are you a man?" was as much superior in significance to that of Mrs. Siddons, as the "Was he alive?" of Mrs. Crawford's (Barry's) Lady Randolph was, in the depth of anxious tenderness.

Mrs. Pritchard retired to Bath to enjoy her hard-earned leisure; but met the not uncommon fate of those who withdraw from toil, to breathe awhile, and repose, in the autumn of their days. A trifling accident to her foot took a fatal turn, and in the August of the year in which she withdrew, she closed her honoured and laborious career. Her name, her example, and her triumphs all deserve to be cherished in the memory of her younger sisters, struggling to win fame and resolved not to tarnish it. Garrick's respect for her was manifested in the remark once made at the mention of her name: "She deserves everything we can do for her."

Mrs. Pritchard's daughter failed to sustain the glory of her mother's name. The season of 1767-68 was the last for both ladies, as it was for Mrs. Pritchard's son-in-law, the first and more coxcombical of the two John Palmers. Mrs. Palmer was short, but elegant and refined; unequal to tragedy, except, perhaps, in the gentle tenderness of Juliet; she was a respectable actress in minor parts of comedy, such as Harriet ("Jealous Wife"), and Fanny ("Clandestine Marriage"), of which she was the original representative. Palmer died three months before his mother-in-law, at the early age of forty, leaving bright stage memories as the original representative of the Duke's servant in "High Life below Stairs," Sir Brilliant Fashion, Brush ("Clandestine Marriage"), &c. His widow remarried with Mr. Lloyd, a political writer, and a protégé of Lord North.