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

Was it from fear that Garrick declined to play Jaffier to Quin's Pierre? It could not have arisen from fatigue, as alleged, for Garrick wrote a capital farce, "Miss in her Teens," and played Fribble in it, and then created Ranger, in Dr. Hoadley's "Suspicious Husband," in which Quin declined the part of Mr. Strictland, and gave to Bridgwater the one opportunity which he seized, of being considered an actor. In Ranger, Garrick surpassed even what old playgoers could recollect of comic excellence. His "Neck or nothing; up I go!" became a popular saying, and the rendering it was a tradition on the stage, from his days to the days of Elliston, the gentlemanly impudence, and the incomparable grace of whose Ranger is still remembered by many among us.

The originality of style and expression in this comedy displeased Quin. He was a conservative, and disliked innovation; contemptuously called the piece a speaking pantomime – forgetful that the old comedies were often much more farcical (which is what he meant) in their incident, and when a name for it was being discussed, suggested scornfully "The Hat and Ladder." Some of Hoadley's friends kindly foretold failure, in order to afford consolation after a kind. Thence the epigram of one of them: —

"Dear doctor, if your comic muse don't please,Turn to your tragic and write recipes."

Not merely as a character piece, but for construction of plot, simplicity and grace of style, and comparative purity of speech and action, the "Suspicious Husband" is the best comedy the eighteenth century had, up to this time, produced. It has a good story clearly and rapidly developed, and the persons of the drama are ladies and gentlemen, and not the dully-vivacious ruffians and the unclean hussies of the Aphra Behn, the Etherege, and Sedley period. The writer was a "royal physician," and son to the famous bishop who, for his opposition to civil and ecclesiastical tyranny, was treated as if he were an infidel. The bishop did not go to witness his son's play; but as all the Hoadleys had a theatrical turn, I feel sure he and his family read it, with many a cheery laugh, in the old room at Chelsea. George II. certainly did so at Windsor, and saw it, too, at the Garden, and was so well pleased with his physician, the author, that he gratefully sent him the handsome fee of £100.

Garrick came off so well in his contest with Quin, that he probably had no fears of trying the fall to which he was challenged, with Barry. For this struggle Spranger Barry passed over to Drury Lane, to wrestle with David on his own ground. Drury may be called peculiarly his, for, by purchasing a share in the patent, he now commenced that career of management which lasted during his theatrical life, and the brilliancy of which was spoken of in every part of the world where an interest was felt in the intellectual enjoyments of the people.

The Drury Lane season of 1747-48 found Garrick joint-patentee with Lacy; Garrick directing the stage without interference, and receiving between six and seven hundred a year, as an actor, exclusive of his profits as part-proprietor. Garrick's company included Barry, Macklin, Delane, Havard, Mills, Yates, Barrington, Sparks, Lowe; and Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Cibber, Mrs. Woffington, Mrs. Clive, and other bright but lesser stars.

In this season the chief attractions were Macklin's Shylock, Barry's Hamlet, Othello, and Pierre; and in less degree, his Bajazet, Henry V., and Orestes. Garrick drew full houses by Archer and Abel Drugger, Lear and Richard, Sir John Brute and Plume, Hamlet and Macbeth; but the greatest attraction of all was when Garrick and Barry played together, as Chamont and Castalio ("Orphan") Hastings and Dumont ("Jane Shore"), Lothario and Horatio ("Fair Penitent"), and Jaffier and Pierre. Against such attractions as were here presented, with the addition of Mrs. Woffington as Sir Harry Wildair, and Mrs. Clive, in all that was light, airy, impertinent, and tuneful – Covent Garden was more than usually weak. The latter, however, depended on the "Beggar's Opera," on Ryan and Delane,49 the younger Cibber, the Giffards, and especially Mrs. Horton; Woodward was in Ireland. Quin had withdrawn to Bath. Garrick's triumphs had soured him. He desired to be asked back, but Rich would not humour him. The one wrote, "I am at Bath; yours, James Quin: " and the other answered, "Stay there and be d – d; yours, John Rich." The old actor returned, however, to play Othello, without fee, on occasion of a "charity benefit." Drury Lane alone produced a new piece, with new characters for Garrick and Barry, namely, Moore's "Foundling," in which Garrick played Young Belmont with great éclat; Barry, Sir Charles Raymond, with dignity and tenderness, and Macklin, a knavish fop, Faddle, with wonderful power.

Moore, like Gay, had originally served in a draper's shop, and like Gay, wrote "Fables," – "for the female sex." His "Foundling" bears some resemblance to the "Conscious Lovers;" but there is more art in the construction of the plot, and it is far purer than that piece which was written to inaugurate an era of purity. In the part of Faddle, he satirised a well-known individual, named Russell, who was the delight of ladies of ton, because of his good looks, crowning impudence, and his "imitations" of opera-singers. These qualities made him a guest, for whom ladies contended; and some displeasure arose, in aristocratic breasts, at Macklin's close mimicry of the man, – who, after all, on being arrested for a debt of £40, was left to pine, starve, and finally to die mad, in the Fleet prison. Such was the fate of this once favourite of fashion.

With the season of 1748-49, came increase of opposition between the two houses. At Drury Lane, Garrick and Barry played alternately Hamlet and Macbeth – the Hamlet of Garrick drawing by far the greater crowds. In the same pieces they played – Barry, Henry V., Garrick, the Chorus; Garrick, Horatio, Barry, Lothario; Garrick, Othello, Barry, Iago;50 and Mahomet by Barry to the Demetrius of Garrick in Johnson's "Irene." Garrick also revived "A New Way to Pay Old Debts," in which King, springing from a coffee house, acted Allworth with great spirit and delicacy. It is strange that Garrick failed to perceive the golden opportunity he might have had as Sir Giles; he assigned the part to an inferior actor named Bridges, and preferred playing Fribble in "Miss in Her Teens." Garrick's greatest triumph this season was in playing Benedick to the Beatrice of Mrs. Pritchard. The town had not had so exquisite a delight for many a long day; and Garrick's happiness would have been supreme, but for the fact that Barry and Mrs. Cibber produced as great a sensation, though of another quality, in Romeo and Juliet. This last piece was not repeated,51 to the great annoyance of Barry; and Garrick, at the close of the season married the pretty Violetti to the intense disgust of Mrs. Woffington, who now joined Rich.

At Covent Garden Quin, Delane, Ryan, Mrs. Woffington, Mrs. Horton, and Miss Bellamy, were the chief attractions. Quin played many parts which Garrick would not attempt. Of those played by both actors, Quin is said to have surpassed Garrick in Sir John Brute. But the most exciting event of this season was the abduction of Miss Bellamy, while playing Lady Fanciful to Quin's Brute. A gentleman named Metham begged to be allowed to speak with her in the hall of the theatre, and thence carried her off and bore her away, little loth, I think, in his carriage. Quin explained the matter to the audience, who enjoyed it as a good thing done and a pleasant thing to hear of.

While the houses were thus contending, Foote was filling the little theatre in the Haymarket with an entertainment of his own; but there were authors of a higher class offering more intellectual pieces to the town. Fourteen years before, when Samuel Johnson was keeping school near Lichfield, he wrote his tragedy "Irene," which, in its rough state, he brought to London, when he and Garrick came up together in search of fortune. With poet, as with actor, the aspects of life had improved; but most with the latter. Johnson, now about forty, had been long known for his London, and had at this time put the finishing touches to his Vanity of Human Wishes. Garrick produced his friend's tragedy, and Johnson was present on the first night in gala dress, but not to be crowned, as Voltaire was, when the lively old Frenchman attended the representation of his "Irene." For nine nights, yielding the poet three benefits – Garrick, Demetrius; Barry, Mahomet; and Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. Pritchard as Aspasia and Irene, exerted themselves – with indifferent success. There is no local colour in this Turkish piece; the language and sentiment are elevated, but they are never oriental in form or spirit. The unities are strictly preserved, but not nature; and therewith the piece was set aside, and Johnson never tried the drama again.

In this season, too, kindly, over-speculating, fanciful Aaron Hill, brought his efforts to a close, with "Merope;" – and creditably, although he challenged comparison with Corneille, and in some things was allowed to have stood it with advantage. The piece was successful, but the author did not live to profit by it.52 His family were weeping for his death, while audiences were shedding tears at the acting of Garrick, Dorilas; and Mrs. Pritchard, Merope. Not only did this tragedy long hold the stage, but the subject of a mother suffering because of a lost son, was so agreeable, it would seem, that Browne, Whitehead, and Home, adopted it in "Barbarossa," "Creusa," and "Douglas."

Covent Garden, too, had its classical tragedy, in "Coriolanus," brought forward by Quin, after his friend Thomson's death. Quin played the hero of Thomson's play; Ryan, Tullius; Delane, Galesus; Mrs. Woffington, Veturia; and Miss Bellamy, Volumnia. This tragedy is worth reading, if it be only to see how very civil and colloquial the hot leader of the Volsci could be made by the Scottish poet in Kew Lane. In Shakspeare's tragedy, we have the annals of a life put into action. In Thomson's, as in Laharpe's "Coriolan," we have a single incident diluted through five acts; – the secession from Rome, and its consequences, forming the staple of a play which ends with a tag of trotting rhymes, which are as natural, and not half so amusing, as if the grave speaker of them had danced a hornpipe in his cothurni. In 1749-50, symptoms were discernible of a break up in the Drury Lane company. Mrs. Cibber, at odds with Garrick, withdrew; and Barry, not allowed to play Romeo, was often indisposed to act in other plays. So it was said: but he publicly protested against any feigned indisposition. He repeated many of his old parts with Garrick, and created Publius Horatius to Garrick's Horatius, in Whitehead's "Roman Father." At Covent Garden, Delane exerted his dying efforts fruitlessly against Barry; and Woffington opposed Woodward in Sir Harry Wildair.

The above tragedy, by the son of a Cambridge baker, and one of Clare Hall's most honoured Fellows, was not the only novelty produced at Drury; – whither William Shirley brought from Portugal, where he had written it in his leisure hours, his "Edward, the Black Prince." Garrick played Edward; Barry, Ribemont; and Mrs. Ward, Marianne. It will suffice, as a sample of Shirley's insight into the Prince's character, to say, that he makes Edward, for love of Marianne, desert to the French side! A more absurd violation of history was never perpetrated by poet.53 In the way of novelty, excepting pantomimic trifles, Covent Garden offered no sign.

The latter house made no acquisitions such as Drury found in King and in Palmer. Dyer, however, proved a useful actor, beginning his career with Tom Errand, and bringing with him his wife, the daughter of Mrs. Christopher Bullock, the daughter of Wilks. On the other hand, the Garden lost Delane, whose first appearance at Goodman's Fields, in 1730,54 was temporarily menacing to the supremacy of Quin, as Garrick's was permanently so, some years later. He was a graceful and clever actor, but there was only one character of note of which he was the original representative – Mahomet.

With this season also departed the actress whom Wilks and Booth looked upon as the legitimate successor of Mrs. Oldfield, namely, Mrs. Horton. Steele highly praised her for her acting Lady Brumpton in his "Funeral." Long after youth was passed she retained a luxuriant beauty, which was the envy of less richly endowed ladies. She loved homage rendered to her charms, and was grateful for it, however humble he who paid it. In her best days all young London was sighing at her feet, and in the meridian of her sunny time she invited adoration by the most exquisite coquetry. About this time her powers began so to decay that Rich only estimated her worth at £4 per week. Between Mrs. Woffington and Mrs. Pritchard she suffered shipwreck. Mrs. Horton was an artificial actress, the other two were of an opposite quality; Mrs. Pritchard especially captivated the public by her natural and intelligible style of speaking. Davies says, – Mrs. Horton had a small annuity, and that Garrick and Lacy added to it by giving her a "part of a benefit." She had, however, other resources. When Lord Orford patronised Lord Luxborough, eldest son of Knight, of South Sea Company notoriety, people could not account for it, but Horace Walpole could. "Lord Luxborough," he writes to Mann, "keeps Mrs. Horton the player; we (Orford) keep Miss Norsa, the player. Rich, the harlequin, is an intimate of all; and to cement the harlequinity, somebody's brother (excuse me if I am not perfect in such genealogy) is to marry the Jewess's sister." In this wise did the stage in those days act upon politics. The Miss Norsa, above-named, had been a singer, of some repute, and Orford, then Lord Walpole, had taken her off the stage with the concurrence of her parents, to whom he gave a bond by which he engaged to marry her as soon as his wife should die! His wife, however, happily outlived him. Horace Walpole, writing to Mann from Houghton, in 1743, says: – "Lord Walpole has taken a dozen pictures to Stanno, a small house, about four miles from hence, where he lives with my Lady Walpole's vicegerent. You may imagine that her deputies are no fitter than she is to come where there is a modest, unmarried girl." This girl was Maria Walpole, daughter of Sir Robert, and subsequently the wife of Colonel Churchill, one of Mrs. Oldfield's sons.

Six-and-thirty years had Mrs. Horton been on the stage (1714-1750), and in all that time she was the original representative of only one character, Mariana, in the "Miser."

And now we come to the famous Romeo and Juliet season, that of 1750-51, in which Garrick and Barry were the rival Romeos, Miss Bellamy and Mrs. Cibber the opposing Juliets. Barry, by passing to Covent Garden, was enabled to play with Quin, in "Othello," the "Orphan," "Jane Shore," "Henry V.," "Julius Cæsar," "Distressed Mother," "Fair Penitent," "Tamerlane," and "King John." In these, Barry's Faulconbridge was alone a failure, and Quin held his own so well that his terms for the season were £1000, the largest sum ever yet received by English actor; but his Richard was as little a success as Barry's Faulconbridge. Garrick, Mrs. Pritchard, and Miss Bellamy appeared together in "Zara;" at the other house,55 Barry, Mrs. Cibber, and Mrs. Woffington, in the "Conscious Lovers." Mrs. Cibber, as Indiana, made a great point by her delivery of such simple words as these: "Sir, if you will pay the money to a servant, it will do as well!" Barry and Mrs. Woffington in Lord and Lady Townley, and Quin and Mrs. Woffington in "Macbeth," were among the attractions of Covent Garden, added to which was Rich's Harlequin; but for that also Garrick found a rival in Woodward, who played the motley hero as he played everything, with care and effect.

But all these matters were as nothing when compared with the rival Romeos and Juliets. They appeared on the same night, at their respective houses, the 28th of September, 1750. At Covent Garden, the public had Romeo, Barry; Mercutio, Macklin; Juliet, Mrs. Cibber. At Drury, Romeo, Garrick; Mercutio, Woodward; Juliet, Miss Bellamy. On the first night Barry spoke a poor prologue, in which it was insinuated that the arrogance and selfishness of Garrick had driven him and Mrs. Cibber from Covent Garden. Garrick, ready to repel assault, answered in a lively, good-natured epilogue, delivered saucily by Mrs. Clive.

It was considered a wonderful circumstance that this play ran for twelve nights successively; Garrick played it thirteen, to show that he was not beaten from the field! At that period the Londoners, who were constant playgoers, demanded a frequent change of performance; and the few country folk then in town felt aggrieved that one play should keep the stage during the whole fortnight they were in London. Thence the well-known epigram: —

"'Well, what's to-night?' says angry Ned,As up from bed he rouses;'Romeo again!' he shakes his head:'A plague on both your houses!'"

Contemporary journals, indeed, affirm that the audiences grew thin towards the end of the fortnight, but this seems doubtful, as Barry's twenty-third representation, in the course of the season, was given expressly on account of the great number of persons who were unable to obtain admission to his twenty-second performance.

There is no doubt that Mrs. Cibber had the handsomer, more silver-tongued, and tender lover. She seemed to listen to him in a sort of modest ecstasy; while Miss Bellamy, eager love in her eyes, rapture in her heart, and amorous impatience in every expression, was ready to fling herself into Romeo's arms. In Barry's Romeo, the critics laud his harmony of feature, his melting eyes, and his unequalled plaintiveness of voice. In the garden scenes of the second and fourth acts, and in the first part of the scene in the tomb, were Barry's most effective points. Garrick's great scenes were with the Friar and the Apothecary. Miss Bellamy declared that in the scene with the Friar alone was Garrick superior to Barry; Macklin swore that Barry excelled his rival in every scene.

The Juliets, too, divided the public judgment. Some were taken by the amorous rapture, the loveliness, and the natural style of Bellamy; others were moved by the grander beauty, the force, and the tragic expression of distress and despair which distinguished Mrs. Cibber. Perhaps, after all, the truest idea of the two Romeos may be gathered from the remark of a lady who did not pretend to be a critic, and who was guided by her feelings. "Had I been Juliet," she said, "to Garrick's Romeo, – so ardent and impassioned was he, I should have expected that he would have come up to me in the balcony; but had I been Juliet to Barry's Romeo, so tender, so eloquent, and so seductive was he, I should certainly have gone down to him!"

Respectively, Barry acted Romeo twenty-three, Garrick nineteen times this season, – a season of which there is nothing more to be said, save that Garrick created the part of Gil Blas, in Moore's comedy of that name, and that he produced Mallet's version of "Alfred" – playing the king.

At this time, the poets were not inspired, or managers could dispense with them, so attractive were the old actors in old pieces, with new actors – Shuter, Palmer, and Miss Macklin – aiding them. Thus, in the season 1751-52, Covent Garden, save in a burletta called the "Oracle," relied on its stock-pieces; and Drury only produced Foote's farce, "Taste," in which Worsdale, the painter, who kept, starved, beat, and lived upon Laetitia Pilkington, played Lady Pentweazle, with humorous effect; – and "Eugenia," a tragedy, by the Rev. Dr. Francis, the father of Sir Philip, in which there was the coarseness of sentiment, but none of the beauty of language or tenderness of feeling of Otway. Yet it was approved by Chesterfield, who sneered at the pit and gallery as "common people who must have objects that strike the senses, and are only moved by the sufferings they see, and even then must be dyed with the blood." But this is untrue, although my lord said it, for Johnson's "Irene" failed because of the strangling of the heroine in presence of the audience; and it was only tolerated, during its brief run, after the killing was described and not performed.

I have said that the managers relied on the actors and not on the poets. In return, the actors exerted themselves to the very utmost. Mrs. Cibber was as much stirred by Miss Bellamy as Barry by Garrick, and the reverse. In "Jane Shore," for instance, Mrs. Cibber, who played Alicia to the Jane of pretty and modest Miss Macklin, seemed, on the 25th of October especially, to be inspired "with something more than mortal." Though Alicia had always been looked on as one of her very best characters, yet this night's performance she never equalled, before nor since.

In this season, Barry acted Romeo twelve, Garrick only six times; but the latter introduced a new opposition to his formidable rival, in the persons of Mossop and Ross, both from Ireland. Mossop first appeared in Richard, which he repeated seven times with great applause. His Zanga was still more successful; indeed, he has never been excelled in that character. Six times he played Horatio to Garrick's Lothario, and charmed the town more frequently by his grand Theseus to Mrs. Pritchard's Phædra. In Macbeth, Othello, Wolsey, and Orestes, he also displayed great powers. Ross, a gentlemanlike actor, made his début in Young Bevil, by Garrick's advice, and acted Lord Townley, Altamont, and Castalio, – the latter to Garrick's Chamont, with great effect. Garrick, no doubt, would have reluctantly seen himself eclipsed by either of those players; but because inferior actors sought to flatter him by calling Mossop a ranter, and Ross a sniveller, and epigrammatists declared indifference to both, it is not conclusive that the flattery pleased or the sneer delighted him. Garrick had his own peculiar triumphs. His Kitely, to Woodward's Bobadil, Yates's Brainworm, Shuter's Master Stephen, Ross's Young Knowell, and Palmer's Wellbred, gave new life to Ben Johnson's comedy of character. Thenceforward was associated the name of Captain Bobadil with that of the scholar from Merchant Tailors' – Harry Woodward.

But this has brought us into a new half-century, Let us pause and look back at the audiences of that which has gone by.

CHAPTER IX

THE AUDIENCES OF 1700-1750

Mr. Isaac Bickerstaffe has laid it down as a rule that it is the duty of every person in a theatrical audience to show his "attention, understanding, and virtue." To the insuperable difficulty of the task may, perhaps, be attributed the carelessness of audiences on this point. How is a man, for instance, to demonstrate his virtue in the public assembly? Steele answers the query – by showing a regard for it when exhibited on the stage. "I would undertake," he says, "to find out all the persons of sense and breeding by the effect of a single sentence, and to distinguish a gentleman as much by his laugh as his bow. When we see the footman and his lord diverted by the same jest, it very much turns to the diminution of the one or the honour of the other. But," he adds, "though a man's quality may appear in his understanding and taste, the regard to virtue ought to be the same in all ranks and conditions of men, however they make a profession of it under the names of honour, religion, or morality."

Steele was gratified by an audience who sympathised with the distress of an honest but unlucky pair of lovers. He thinks that the Roman audience which broke into an ecstasy of applause at the abnegation of self displayed in the friendship of Pylades and Orestes, showed qualities which justly made of the Roman people the leaders of mankind. As if appreciation of the semblance of good were the same thing as the exercise of it. The same people applauded as lustily when they saw the life-blood spilt of the vanquished gladiator.

Again, he discovers a surpassing excellence in an Athenian audience, – famed of old for applauding the virtues which the Lacedemonians practised. That audience was roused to the utmost fury by the speech of a man who professed to value wealth far above good name, family, or natural affection. The uproar was so great that the author was compelled to come forward and ask the forbearance of the house till the last act of the piece, in which he promised that this wretched fellow would be brought to condign punishment. Mr. Bickerstaffe very much questions whether modern audiences would be moved to such a laudable horror. It would be very undesirable that they should: or that a person should swing out of the house in disgust, as Socrates did when he attended the first representation of a tragedy by his friend Euripides, – and was excited to anger by a remark of Hippolitus, to the effect that he had "taken an oath with his tongue but not with his heart." The maxim was indefensible, but the action of the play required it; and Socrates had been truer to his friend had he remained till the dénouement, and not have hurried away while that friend's play was being applauded.