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

A change of proprietorship in the Drury Lane patent afforded Garrick an excuse for repairing to Dublin. His rival, Sheridan, invited him, not concealing his dislike, but professing readiness to meet all his requirements. With some difficulty the terms were arranged, and Garrick appeared in various characters, alternating them with Sheridan, and playing frequently with a new actor, young Barry, who was afterwards to become the most dreaded and the most brilliant of his rivals.

For a long series of years the Irish stage had been, with rare exceptions, in a pitiable condition. At one time three houses were open, with a public only sufficient for one. Managing committees of noblemen made the confusion worse confounded, and seven managers, known as the "seven wise men," only exhibited their folly and incapacity. There were performers of merit at from twelve shillings to a guinea a week, who seldom obtained half their salaries. On one occasion, we hear of the acting managers coming down to the theatre, one evening, when, on comparing notes, they were all found to be dinnerless, for want of cash and of credit. With the first money that was paid at the doors they obtained a loin of mutton, with the next they sent for bread, and with a third supply they procured the generous beverage they most required; and then dined behind the scenes while the performance was in progress.

Sheridan's management produced a thorough reformation; and when Garrick appeared, on the 9th of December 1745, as Hamlet, the sensation was extraordinary; but it was increased when Garrick, Barry, and Sheridan acted in the same plays – the "Orphan" and the "Fair Penitent." Then, the enthusiasm was unbounded. In the latter play, Barry is said to have so distinguished himself in Altamont as to have raised that character to a level with those of Lothario and Horatio, played respectively by Garrick and Sheridan. This was the most successful season ever known in Dublin. During its progress Garrick played but one character he had never played before, – Orestes,44 and that he never repeated in England. His objection to wear the old classical costume, or what then passed for it, was extreme. His sojourn in Dublin was otherwise not void of incident. There was one thin house, and that by command of a leading lady of fashion, on the night of his playing Faulconbridge to Sheridan's King John. The part of Constance belonged by right to that sparkling young beauty, Mrs. Bellamy. Garrick thought her too youthful to enact the mother of Arthur, and he persuaded Sheridan to give the part to an older actress, Mrs. Furnival. The angry Bellamy flew to lay her wrongs before the most influential woman then in Dublin, the Hon. Mrs. Butler, whose word, throughout the Irish world of fashion, passed for law. Mrs. Butler espoused the suppliant's case warmly, and issued her decree, prohibiting the world over which she ruled from visiting the theatre on the night "King John" was to be played. As she gave excellent dinners and exquisite balls, she was obeyed by all ages and both sexes, and the "quality," at least, left the actors to play to empty boxes.

Garrick had recovered from the attendant mortification, when he asked Mrs. Bellamy to play Jane Shore to his Hastings, for his benefit. The lady declined. If she was too young for Constance, she was too young for Jane Shore. Garrick applied to Mrs. Butler to use her influence, but it availed nothing. He addressed a high-flown letter to Mrs. Bellamy: "To my soul's idol, the beautified Ophelia;" but the epistle fell into wrong hands and found its way into the papers.

Roscius, before leaving Ireland, paid homage to the Hon. Mrs. Butler, by taking leave of her in a formal visit. With equal formality, as the visitor was about to depart, the lady placed in his hands a small packet. It contained, she said, her own sentiments and convictions, and, in presenting it to Mr. Garrick, all that she requested was, that he would abstain from too curiously inquiring into its contents until he had sailed out of Dublin Bay. The actor had vanity enough to lead him to think that, within the mysterious packet might be enclosed some token of affection, perhaps an acknowledgment of love. He obeyed the lady's injunctions till the ship, which was conveying him to Holyhead, had passed the Hill of Howth, then, "by your leave, fair seal!" and he arrived at the heart of the mystery. Carefully unfolded, he found a copy of Wesley's Hymns and of Swift's Discourse on the Trinity. In his disappointment he is said to have flung both books into the sea; but I think he may have had better taste, and that he took Mrs. Butler's remembrances with him to London.

Before proceeding to chronicle the leading events of the next London season, it remains to be stated that in the last season at Covent Garden, there was one first appearance of note; that of George Anne Bellamy, on the 22d of November, 1744, as Monimia, in the "Orphan." Rich persuaded this gifted but self-willed girl to become an actress, greatly to the displeasure of Quin, who objected to perform Chamont to such a child. In the first three acts her terrors rendered her so incapable, that old Quin's objections seemed justified; but, recovering her power with her courage, the brilliant young creature played with such effect that Quin embraced her after the act-scene dropped, pronounced her "divine," and declared that she was of the "true spirit." She sensibly strengthened a company already strong, in Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Clive, and Mrs. Horton. On the 15th of April, 1745, Shuter, from Richmond, appeared at Covent Garden, in the "Schoolboy," under the designation of Master Shuter.

At the Haymarket, Theophilus Cibber revived some of Shakspeare's plays, and produced his daughter Jane in Juliet and other parts; but Colley compelled him to withdraw his daughter, and the Lord Chamberlain forced him to close an unlicensed house, which, however, his eccentric sister, Mrs. Charke, contrived to keep open for a while, playing there Captain Macheath and other male characters before she attempted to pass herself off on the world, or hide herself from it, as a man.

There is this irregularity in the season of 1745-46, that neither Garrick, nor Quin, nor Mrs. Cibber was engaged at either house. The public was more concerned with the Scottish Rebellion than with the drama. Loyal Lacy, who had succeeded the incapable Fleetwood in the patent, applied for leave to raise 200 men in defence of King and Government; and the whole Company of Drury Lane players expressed their willingness to engage in it. The spirit which some hundred years before had animated the loyal actors, now moved Delane, and Luke and Isaac Sparks, with Barrington – all three newly come from Ireland – Mills, with orthodox Havard, Bridges, Giffard, Yates, Macklin, Neale, and Foote. The ladies, Clive, Woffington, Macklin, mother and daughter, Mrs. Giffard, and the rest, applauded the loyal confederacy. The "Nonjuror" was revived with Luke Sparks as Dr. Wolf, because of its political allusions. Macklin in six weeks wrote his "Henry VII., or the Popish Impostor," and distributed it act by act for study, and he sent the Pretender, Perkin Warbeck, to execution without much succouring King George. Ford's ultra-monarchical piece, on the same subject, was revived at Goodman's Fields, and Covent Garden rehearsed another to no effect, as the Rebellion was over before the piece could suppress it. The "Massacre at Paris," with its story of the pretensions of the Duke de Guise (Ryan) and its famous Protestant prologue, was among the Covent Garden revivals. The Scottish rebellion being over, Theophilus Cibber congratulated the audience thereon at Drury; and Mrs. Pritchard, at the Garden, after acting Arpasia in "Tamerlane," recited an exulting prologue, which Dodsley printed in his best type. Both houses gave benefits for the "Veteran Scheme" at Guildhall, for which scheme Mrs. Cibber offered to play three nights, gratis, but was snubbed by a hyper-Protestant in the papers. The handsome Catholic actress indignantly replied, that her love for King George was not diminished by her faith in the Romish religion. The whole matter ended merrily by George II. and the entire royal family repairing to Covent Garden, where "Macbeth" was performed, and a rebel and regicide put to death to the great satisfaction of the royal, noble, gentle, and simple audience there congregated.

I do not know which of the new comers, named above, so struck Lady Townshend, that she told Horace Walpole, in September, 1745, "she had seen a new fat player, who looked like everybody's husband." Walpole replied, "I could easily believe that from seeing so many women who looked like everybody's wives!"

In all other respects, there is little worthy of notice, save that, at the close, when all was jubilee again, and Charles Edward no longer an object of fear, Garrick re-appeared in London. He arrived in town in May, 1746. Rich and Lacy were both eager to engage him, but the former succeeded, and Garrick closed the season at Covent Garden, by playing six nights at £50 per night. Thus he gained more in a week than Betterton, ere he was a "master," had gained in a year. Lacy, meanwhile, had secured Barry, and the town were eager to hear him of the silver-tongue. Garrick generously said of him, in answer to a query respecting the merits of the Irish actor, that he was the most exquisite lover that had ever been seen on the stage. Barry proved the truth of this criticism, by excelling Garrick in Romeo, in which the latter was so fervent, the former so winning and so seductive.

Before we proceed to notice the coming struggle, let us cast back a glance at the stage from whence this master came.

CHAPTER VII

THE OLD DUBLIN THEATRE

But for a murder in the house of a Mrs. Bungy, Dublin would not have had its famous old theatre in that locality, which the popular voice would call by the name of Smock Alley (from the handsome hussies who lived there), long after Mrs. Bungy's house and those adjacent to it had been swept away, and the newer and finer edifices were recorded as standing in "Orange Street." The first theatre in this questionable locality was erected soon after the Restoration; but at the period named, this house and theatricals, generally, were opposed with as much bitterness in Dublin as in Edinburgh.

I learn from Gilbert's "History of Dublin" that, in 1662, the Chapter of Christchurch expressed its horror at "one of the stipendiaries of the church having sung among the stage-players in the play-house, to the dishonour of God's service and disgrace to the members and ministers of the church." The ultra-religious portion of the Dublin community hated the theatre, with all their hearts, and to such persons two little incidents occurred to the play-house in Smock Alley, which must have been peculiarly pleasant to their humane yet indignant hearts. One was, that in 1671, the gallery of the above-mentioned house being over-crowded, fell into the pit. The consequences, of course, were lamentable, but, you see, those godless players were acting Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair," and what could be expected when that satire on the super-righteous was raising a laugh in the throats of the Philistines? Again, in 1701, a part of the same house fell in during a representation of Shadwell's "Libertine," and nothing could seem more natural than this catastrophe, to the logical bosoms of the upright; for at the devil's jubilee, Satan himself was present, and carried home with him the lost souls of his children. Even the play-going public grew a little suspicious of the stability of the building, but they were re-assured by the easy certificate of a "Surveyor-general," who asserted that there was no chance of a failure in the holdfasts and supports of the edifice, for several years! In half-a-dozen years, however, the house was down; and, in seven months, the new house was open to an eager public. The latter, however, were not quite so eager to enter as the managers were to receive them. "So eager were they to open, that they began to play before the back part of the house was tiled in, which, the town knowing, they had not half an audience the first night, but mended leisurely by degrees."45 It was in the old house that Elrington, the great support of Drury Lane when Booth was indisposed, ruled supreme in the hearts and houses of his enthusiastic Irish admirers. His old patrons never forgot him. "I have known," says one already quoted, "Tom Elrington in the part of Bajazet to be heard all over the Blind Quay; and I do not believe you could hear Barry or Mossop out of the house."

We are here, however, anticipating events. Let us return to chronological order. In the old houses, heavy classical tragedy seems to have been most popular; and when Dublin was tired of it, the company took it to Edinburgh. Rough times of war closed the house; but when William's authority was firmly established, theatrical matters looked up again, and in March, 1692, Ashbury, who, with Mr. and Mrs. Betterton, had instructed the Princess Anne how to speak and act Semandra, in "Mithridates," when that piece was played at Whitehall, opened the house with "Othello," playing Iago to the Moor of Robert Wilks. Among this early company are also to be noted Booth, Estcourt, Norris, Bowen, and Trefusis, contributions from England, and the latter so admirable for dancing the rustic clown, that General Ingoldsby once handed him a £5 note from his box, and gave him a second when Joe went up to the Castle to thank him, – the General not recognising him till Trefusis imitated his dialect and action of the night before.

The ladies were not in force; Mrs. Knightly, Mrs. Ashbury, and Mrs. Hook, were the principal under Ashbury, who added the names of Quin and the two Elringtons, and Mrs. Thurmond, to his company, before he closed a management of about thirty years. In that period, Ashbury raised the Irish stage to a prosperous and respectable position. His son-in-law, Thomas Elrington, succeeded him in the management.

Under Ellington's rule, young Stirling first awaked the Irish muse to tragedy, and Charles Shadwell furnished the house with half-a-dozen pieces of very inferior merit. Meanwhile, in 1727, Madame Violanti opened a booth, with her wondrous rope-dancing, and her Lilliputian company, whose representation of the "Beggar's Opera" excited a perfect sensation. The Macheath was a Miss Betty Barnes; Polly, Miss Woffington; Peachum, Master Isaac Sparks; and Filch, Master Barrington, – all of these were, subsequently, players of more or less renown.

Up to this time, the best native actor was Wilks, now we have Peg Woffington; in 1728 appeared the handsome, young Delane, of Trinity College; his graceful figure, full-toned voice, added to his zeal and application (both too short-lived), rendered him an unusual favourite. In the same company were Mr. and Mrs. Ward, whose daughter, born at Clonmel, was the mother of "the Kembles."

Elrington died in 1732. He was the first actor who played Zanga in Dublin; much to the admiration of Dr. Young, who thought Mills mouthed and growled the character overmuch. After Elrington's death, disorder sprung up. Smock Alley was opposed by a new theatre, erected in Rainsford Street, in the "Earl of Meath's Liberty," and beyond the jurisdiction of the mayor. At the former, the company, including, occasionally, some of the best actors from London, was better than the house which was so decayed, that a new, a much grander, but in every other way a less efficient house, was erected in Aungier Street, at which the tall, cold beauty, the ex-quakeress, Mrs. Bellamy, mother of George Anne Bellamy, was a principal actress. A committee of noblemen managed this house, with the usual result of enormous loss. Dublin having more theatres than could prove profitable, the old theatre in Smock Alley was pulled down; but a new one was erected, which was opened in December 1735, with "Love for Love."46 In which Don Duart was played by Cashel, subsequently a popular Macheath. He was one of the many actors who have died, or received their death-stroke, on the stage. While acting Frankly, in the "Suspicious Husband," at Norwich, in 1748, he was smitten by apoplexy and died in a few hours.

The Theatre Royal in Aungier Street had its real opponent in this house, opened by licence of the Lord Mayor, in the more central position, in Smock Alley. The house in Rainsford Street was soon closed. London performers, who were sure of profitable benefits, went over to both houses; but I much prefer to remark that, at Aungier Street, in February 1737, Margaret Woffington, her childhood being past, first appeared as an actress, in the part of Ophelia. Her beauty, grace, her ease, simplicity, her pretty singing, her coquetry, and the wonderful "finish" of the male characters she afterwards assumed, gave a fortune to the theatre, which was only checked by the famine of the severe winter 1739-40, during which the houses were closed for three months.

This theatre in Aungier Street had a company so powerful, including Quin, Delane, and Mrs. Cibber, at the close of the London season, that, on its re-opening, in 1741, Smock Alley, with Elrington, Isaac Sparks, and Mrs. Furnival,47 could not successfully compete with it; but, in June 1742, Duval, the proprietor, by engaging Giffard, Mrs. Woffington, and Garrick, turned the scale, and during three of the hottest months of the hottest summer ever known, attracted crowds to Smock Alley, and spread fever over the city!

After success, and when the great players had disappeared, came re-action, empty houses, tumblers, rope-dancers, equestrianism, – and nightly losses. On the 29th of January 1743, however, the town felt a new sensation, afforded by the acting of a "young gentleman" in Richard, at Smock Alley. The Mithridates of the debutant was as successful as Richard, and then the young actor was known to be the son of Dr. Sheridan, a young man of three-and-twenty, whose appearance on the stage brought great vexation to all his friends. But also much reputation to himself in Richard, Brutus, Hamlet, Othello, Cato, and the highest walks of comedy.

A curious incident carried Sheridan to the rival house in Aungier Street. One night in July 1743, his robe for Cato was not forthcoming from the Smock Alley wardrobe, and Sheridan refused to play without it. Theophilus Cibber was there among the London birds of passage. He was cast for Syphax, and his offer to read the part of Cato and play his own was accepted. Cato and Syphax are never on the stage together; but in the second act, Theophilus must have been put to it, for there, Syphax enters close upon the heels of the retiring Cato.

How the "numerous and polite audience" enjoyed the piece thus represented, I cannot say; a paper war ensued, and Sheridan passed to the other house. But two houses could not exist, and an agreement was at length made to consolidate the two companies, and to open at Aungier Street, whereupon the rejected actors, of course, opened Smock Alley, and thence came confusion worse confounded, till Sheridan, quarrelling with the proprietors at Aungier Street, passed back to Smock Alley, and did something towards retrieving its fortunes. But he was ill seconded, and in March, 1744, flushed by his new honours, he crossed the Channel and appeared at Covent Garden.

And now, instead of two companies in one house, Dublin saw one company alternately playing in two houses, with little profit, till on the night of February 15th, 1744, "Othello" was given at Smock Alley, the part of Othello by Spranger Barry (Iago, Wright; Desdemona, Mrs. Bailey). His noble person, his harmonious voice, his transitions from love to jealousy, from tenderness to rage, enchanted the audience, though in some respects the performance was unfinished. His principal characters were Othello, Pierre, Hotspur, Lear, Henry V., Orestes, and that once favourite comedy-character with young tragedians, Bevil, jun. Barry filled the house every night he played; but, I suppose, a feature of Irish management, he played only occasionally. Foote, in this his first Irish season, drew a few good houses, but Barry was the chief attraction. He was opposed by the old ejected comedians, who opened a temporary house in Capel Street, which, however, was soon closed.

Under mismanaging committees of noblemen, three dozen in number, with seven wise men for a quorum, affairs went ill, and Sheridan was, at length, invited from England to take sole government, and restore order and profit where anarchy and poverty reigned. This Sheridan effected, by degrees, aided by his judgment, industry, zeal, perseverance, and unflinching honesty. During his first season, 1745-46, he produced, first, Miss Bellamy, on November 11th, at Aungier Street, in the "Orphan," to the Castalio of Barry, and his own Chamont; and in the following month Garrick appeared as Hamlet. In the "Fair Penitent" Garrick, Barry, and Sheridan played together to the Calista of Mrs. Furnival; and "All for Love" was cast with Antony, Barry; Ventidius, Sheridan; Cleopatra, Miss Bellamy; Octavia, Mrs. Furnival; Garrick and Sheridan played Richard and Hamlet alternately, and each in turn played Iago to Barry's Othello. The following season brought Barry to England, where he laid the foundations of a great professional glory which endured as long as Garrick's, though it was somewhat tarnished and enfeebled, yet still second only to Garrick's towards its close.

CHAPTER VIII

GARRICK AND QUIN; GARRICK AND BARRY

This new actor, Spranger Barry, who has come to London to wrestle, as it were, with Garrick, is now in his twenty-seventh year, and has been but two years, brief noviciate, on the Irish stage. He had previously followed, with some reluctance, the vocation of his father, that of silversmith; but, respectable and lucrative as it was, the stage had more attraction for him, and thither he went in pursuit of fame and fortune, nor missed the object he pursued so steadily. His success in Ireland was great at a time when there was a body of players there, which for ability has certainly never been surpassed. Spranger was very well connected, and it was by the counsel of his kinsman, Sir Edward Barry, that he turned his face towards London, and resolved to try a fall there with David Garrick.

His first appearance was at Drury Lane, October 2, 1746,48 in the character of Othello; Iago, Macklin; Cassio, Mills; Roderigo, Yates; Desdemona, Mrs. Ridout; Emilia, Mrs. Macklin. What aspirant entering on a struggle of a similar nature now, would be gratified with such notice as the press, in the General Advertiser, awarded to the new actor, on this occasion? "Barry performed Othello before a numerous and polite audience, and met with as great applause as could be expected."

And the triumph was as great as the player could have hoped for. In some things, Barry profited by the suggestions and teaching of Macklin; and the fact that for nearly eighty nights, about half of which were given to Othello, Lord Townley, and Macbeth, Barry drew crowded houses, will show that a new and dangerous rival had sprung up in Garrick's path, at the moment he was contending with a skilled and older rival at Covent Garden. In the earlier part of the season, Garrick had played Hamlet, King Lear, Richard, Archer, Bayes, and Chamont; Quin had played Richard, with no success; Cato, Bajazet, and Sir John Brute. The two met together for the first time in the same piece, on the 14th of November 1746, in the "Fair Penitent;" Horatio, Quin; Lothario, Garrick; Altamont, Ryan; Calista, Mrs. Cibber.

This was the greatest theatrical event that had occurred for years; and when the actor of the old school, and he of the new met on the stage, in the second act, the audience who now first saw them, as they had long wished to see them, face to face, absolutely disconcerted them by a hurricane of greeting – a perfect storm of gratulation, expressed in every way that applause can be given, but in louder and longer peals than had ever been heard by actors of that "generation." When it had passed, every word was breathlessly listened to; every action marked. Some were won by the grand emphasis and the moral dignity of Quin; others by the grace, spirit, and happy wickedness of Garrick. Between them, it was difficult to award the palm of supreme distinction to either – and Mrs. Cibber was, for once, forgotten. They subsequently played together Falstaff and Hotspur; and Hastings and Glo'ster, repeatedly, in "Jane Shore." Glo'ster was one of Quin's "strut and whisker parts," and Garrick had such advantage over him in Hastings, that "the scale was now completely turned in Garrick's favour."