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

I do not find that any special evening was considered particularly "fashionable" till towards the close of Cibber's managerial career at Drury Lane, which, by good administration, had become so much in fashion, he says, "with the politer part of the town, that our house, every Saturday, seemed to be the appointed assembly of the first ladies of quality. Of this, too," he adds, "the common spectators were so well apprised, that, for twenty years successively on that day, we scarcely ever failed of a crowded audience, for which occasion we particularly reserved our best plays, acted in the best manner we could give them."

From the Restoration till late in the reign of Queen Anne, those "politer" folks, as Cibber, – or the "quality," as Chesterfield would have called them, had been accustomed to arrogate to themselves the privilege not merely of going behind the scenes but crowding at the wings, and, at last, invading the stage itself, while the play was being acted. Through this mob the players had to elbow their way; and where all illusion was destroyed, difficult must have been the task, but marvellous the triumph, of those actors who could make grief appear sincere, and humour seem spontaneous and genuine. This mob was not a civil and attentive crowd, but a collection of impertinent persons, who buzzed and moved about, and changed salutations with the audience, or addressed the players – the chief of whom they must often have supremely exasperated. The "decency of a clear stage" was one of Cibber's great objects, and when his importunity and the decree of Queen Anne drove the erratic part of the audience back to their proper position in the house, a change for the better was effected, by which all parties were gainers. This decree was issued in January 1704, and it prohibited "the appearance of any of the public on the stage whatever might be their quality, the wearing of masks in any part of the house, entering the house without previous due payment, and the acting of anything on the stage contrary to religion and good manners." Previously to the appearance of this decree, persons were employed to take down profane words uttered by the performers, who were thereupon prosecuted, and, on conviction, fined. The authors who penned the phrases, for omitting which the actor would have been mulcted, were neither molested nor censured.

Cibber contrasts French and English audiences to the disadvantage of the latter; but I think he is wrong in his conclusions. "At the tragedy of 'Zaire,'" he says, "while the celebrated Mdlle. Gossin was delivering a soliloquy, a gentleman was seized with a sudden fit of coughing, which gave the actress some surprise and interruption, and, his fit increasing, she was forced to stand silent so long that it drew the eyes of the uneasy audience upon him; when a French gentleman, leaning forward to him, asked him if this actress had given him any particular offence, that he took so public an occasion to resent it? The English gentleman, in the utmost surprise, assured him, so far from it, that he was a particular admirer of her performance; that his malady was his real misfortune, and that if he apprehended any return of it, he would rather quit his seat than disoblige either the actor or the audience." Colley adds, that he had seen this "publick decency" of the French theatre carried so far "that a gentleman in their Second Loge, or Middle Gallery, being observed to sit forward himself, while a lady sat behind him, a loud number of voices called out to him from the pit —Place à la Dame! Place à la Dame! when the person so offending, either not apprehending the meaning of the clamour, or possibly being some John Trot, who feared no man alive, the noise was continued for several minutes; nor were the actors, though ready on the stage, suffered to begin the play till this unbred person was laughed out of his seat, and had placed the lady before him."

This, however, was but the mere arrogance of the pit, towards which, had the lady stood for a moment, with her back turned, the polite gentlemen there would have roared lustily, as under similar circumstances they do at the present time, "Face au parterre!" And as for the tenderness of the old French audiences for their actors, I have already given some taste of its quality, and have only to add here, that the French magistrates were once compelled to issue a decree wherein "Every person is prohibited from doing any violence in the Theatre de Bourgogne, in Paris, during the time any piece is performing, as likewise from throwing stones, dust, or anything which may put the audience into an uproar, or create any tumult."

The decree of 1704 for keeping the stage clear does not appear to have been universally observed, for, on the opening of the first theatre in Covent Garden, in December 1732, I find it announced that, on account of the great demand for places, the pit and boxes were laid together at 5s., the galleries at 2s. and 1s., and to prevent the stage from being crowded, admission thereto was raised to half a guinea. In the former year, to appear at the theatre in a red coat and a laced hat, indicated a rural beau who was behind his time, and had not yet laid aside a fashion as old as the days of Great Nassau. Dress, however, was indispensable. Swift writes to Stella, on the 31st of August 1711, "Dilly and I walked to Kensington, to Lady Mountjoy, who invited us to dinner. He returned soon to go to the play, it being the last that will be acted for some time. He dresses himself like a beau, and no doubt makes a fine figure." No doubt that Dillon Ashe was dressed in his best that night, on which he went to Drury, and saw "Love's a Jest," with Pack in Sam Gaymood, and Mrs. Porter as Lady Single.

As the government procured the passing of the Licensing Act less for the sake of morality than to save administration from the shafts of satire, so the public took it unkindly of them, but unreasonably revenged themselves on innocent authors. No secret was made of the determination of playgoers to damn the first piece that should be stigmatised with the license of the Lord Chamberlain. That piece happened to be the "Nest of Plays," by Hildebrand Jacob, represented at Covent Garden, in January 1738, which was damned accordingly. But the public sense of wrong was not yet appeased. The "Parricide" subsequently was condemned, solely because it was a licensed piece. "That my enemies," says William Shirley, the author, "came resolved to execute before trial, may be gathered from their behaviour ere the play began, for at five o'clock they engaged and overthrew the candles in the music-room, and called a council of war, whether they should attack the harpsichord or not; but to your good fortune," he adds, addressing Rich, "it was carried in the negative. Their expelling ladies from the pit, and sending for wine to drink, were likewise strong indications of their arbitrary and violent dispositions." It is to be observed, however, of a few condemned pieces of this period, that the authors rather abused their opportunity of ascribing their ill fortune solely to the unpopularity of the Licensing Act.

The ushering of ladies out of the pit was one of the formal indications that serious mischief was afoot. This was the first ceremony observed at Drury Lane in January 1740, when the riot took place consequent on the non-appearance of a French dancer, Madame Chateauneuf. When the ladies had been sent home, a noble marquis suggested, and warmly recommended, that it would be well and proper to set fire to the house! This atrocious proposal was considered but not adopted. The aristocratic rioters contented themselves with destroying the musical instruments, fittings, and costly adornments, sweeping down the panel partitions of the boxes, and finally pulling down the royal arms. The offence, however, was condoned, on the most noble marquis sending £100 to the manager, who submitted to defray the remainder of the cost of reparation rather than further provoke his excellent patrons.

The mixture of ferocity and gallantry in the audiences of these times was remarkable. When Miller, most unlucky of clergymen, produced his farce of the "Coffee-House," he caused the Temple to heave with indignation. Under the temple gate there was a coffee-house, kept by Mrs. Yarrow and her daughter, and as there was not only a similar pair in Miller's piece, but a woodcut on the title-page of the printed copy, which bore some likeness to the snug little place where Templars loved to congregate, those gentlemen took offence as at an insult levelled at their fair hostesses, and went down in a body to the theatre, whence they procured the expulsion of the piece. Nor did they ever suffer a subsequent play of Miller's to succeed. The Templars never forgave him his unintentional caricature of the buxom hostess, and Hebe her daughter, who presided over the aromatic cups dispensed by them beneath the Temple gates. In contests like these, where opposition was expected, it was no unusual thing for one or both parties to hire a body of professional "bruisers." The side which possessed the greatest number of these Bashi-Bazouks generally carried the day. When the town took sides, in 1743, in the quarrel between Garrick and Macklin, where the right was altogether with the former, Dr. Barrowby headed a phalanx of sturdy Macklinites; but Garrick, or Garrick's friends, sent against them a formidable band of thirty boxers, who went in, cracked skulls, cleared the pit, and established tranquillity!

It is curious to mark, at a time when audiences bore with gross wit, and were accustomed, on slight provocation, to resort to acts of violence, how sensitive they were on other points. Poor Hughes, who died on the first night of the representation of his "Siege of Damascus," in 1720, was compelled to remodel the character of Phocyas, a Christian who turns Moslem, as the managers considered that the audience would not tolerate the sight of him after his apostasy. So Charles Killigrew, Master of the Revels, cut out the whole of the first act from Cibber's adaptation of "Richard III." on the ground that the Jacobite portion of the audience, in the distress of King Henry, would be painfully or angrily reminded of the sorrows of King James. After all, susceptible as audiences occasionally were, the sensibilities of the gallery remained untouched, or evidence of the fact was offered in an exaggerated form. When Dryden's Cleomenes, or Rowe's Jane Shore, used to complain of the hunger under which they suffered, it was the humour of the "gods" to fling bread down upon the stage by way of showing their sympathy, or their want of it.

"All the parts will be played to the best advantage, the whole of the company being now in town," was no unusual bait thrown out to win an audience. Sometimes the house would fill to see, on great occasions, the foremost folk in the land, fops and fine ladies occupying the amphitheatre erected on the stage, and the players acting between a double audience. What should we think now of an author taking a benefit, obtaining at it the presence of the heir to the throne, and delivering an oration on the condition and merits of the royal family and the state of the nation as regarded foreign and domestic relations? Yet this is what Durfey did, to the delight and edification of his hearers, at Drury Lane, in 1715.

On other occasions plays were given "for the entertainment of the new Toasts and several Ladies of Quality," whereat crowds flocked to behold the pretty nymphs whose names consecrated the flowing bumpers of the beaux, and the married ladies who had enjoyed that honour in their earlier days.

"The boxes still the brighter circles were;Triumphant toasts received their homage there."

At other times, there were less friendly and admiring gatherings; and epilogues laudatory of Eugene and Marlborough filled the house with friends and foes of those illustrious men, and furnished reasons for very unreasonable conflicts. A flourish of the pen, too, in the Tatler or Spectator, could send half the town to fight for vacant benches; and it was remarked that there was scarcely a comedian of merit who had not been recommended to the public in the former journal. But to see these, there often only thronged

"Poets free o' th' house, and beaux who never pay."

These non-paying beaux were as troublesome to players as to audience. In vain were they warned off the stage, where, indeed, half-a-guinea could always find admission for them, even after the managers had decreed that the way should be barred, though Potosi itself were offered for a bribe. In 1721, half-a-dozen tipsy beaux, with one among them of the degree of an Earl, who was wont to be tipsy for a week together, raised a riot, to avenge an affront, in the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. His lordship crossed the stage, while Macbeth and his lady were upon it, to speak to a boon companion, who was lolling at the opposite wing. There, too, stood Rich, the manager, who told the peer that, after such an act of indecorum, he should never be admitted behind the scenes again. The Earl looked up, and, steadying himself, administered to Rich a smart slap on the face, which Rich returned with interest. Swords flashed forth in a minute from half-a-dozen scabbards, whose laced and lordly owners solemnly decreed that Rich must die. But Quin, and Ryan, and Walker, rushed to the rescue, with their own weapons naked in their hands. With aid of some other members of the company, they, made front, charged the coxcombs, and drove them headlong out at the stage door and into the kennel. The beaux waxed wroth; but executing a great strategic movement, they stormed the front of the house, and rushing into the boxes, they cut and thrust right and left, broke the sconces, slashed the hangings, and were proceeding to do further mischief, – "fire the house!" was ever a favourite threat with these bullies – when doughty Quin, and a body of constables and watchmen, flung themselves on the rioters, and carried all they caught before the magistrates, by whom they were committed for trial. Ultimately, the affair was compromised; but there is evidence that the actors were intimidated, inasmuch as they issued a declaration that they would "desist from acting till proper care be taken to prevent the like disorders for the future." The house was closed for nearly a week; and, to prevent such outrages in future, the angry King, who took an interest in theatrical matters, ordered that a guard should attend during the performances at either house. This was the origin of the attendance of soldiers, – a custom which ceased at the patent theatres only a few years since.57

In the sight of an exceedingly "free" people, the guard was an insult, which the mob, and not the beaux, resented. It was a popular pastime to pelt them, till the terrors of the Prison-Gate House terminated the folly. The mob, indeed, loved a riot quite as dearly as the "quality," and were especially ungallant to the aspiring young ladies on the stage. West's tragedy of "Hecuba" entirely failed at Drury Lane, in 1726, through the Vandalism of the galleries, who, as capricious as my lords below, hissed the "young actresses" from beginning to end; and yet those "young actresses" were Mrs. Cibber, and other "darlings" of the town.

Colley Cibber once pleaded the gracious presence of a prince in order to win propriety of conduct from an audience; at other times, the more gracious presence of a poet won respect. This was the case on that hot night in June 1730,58 when "George Barnwell" was first played at Drury Lane. The audience had supplied themselves with the old ballad on the subject of that famous apprentice lad, – intending to make ludicrous contrast between the story there and that in the tragedy; but Pope was present, serious and attentive, and the rough critics, taking their cue from him, followed his example; at least, they threw away their ballads, took out their handkerchiefs, and wept over the fate of the wicked lad, so admirably played by that prince of scamps, Theophilus Cibber. Such a warning did he hold out to evildoers, that influential people of quality and reflecting city merchants used occasionally, for years, to "command" the playing of this tragedy, as wholesome instruction for apprentices in particular, and a wicked young public, generally.

Among the influential part of the audience, may be numbered the ladies. It was at their particular request that the part of Bookish, in Fielding's "Old Man taught Wisdom," was omitted after the first night, on account of some rude sentiments, touching the superiority of man over woman, – or of Bookish over Lucy! Considering how women, and audiences generally, were roughly handled in prologues and epilogues, the deference otherwise paid to the latter seems singular. For instance: the company at the Haymarket, in 1735, announced that they would "continue to act on Tuesdays and Fridays, as long as they shall deserve the favour of the town." The most exacting portion of the audience, however, was to be found in the footmen. From the earliest times, they had been famous for their "roaring;" and Dryden speaks of them as a nuisance, than which there was no greater, except "their unpaying masters." These masters had small chance of hearing the play, unless their lacqueys gave permission. The plan of opening the upper gallery to these fellows, gratis, in 1697, was an aggravation rather than a palliative of the evil; but the privilege, although at various times suspended, was not finally abolished till about 1780. As many as three hundred of the party-coloured tribe have been known to unite, armed, in support of the privilege which they invariably abused. Of authors present at the condemnation of their own pieces, and of the philosophy, or lack of it, with which they bore their calamity, I shall have to speak presently; but I am tempted to notice here, as illustrations of the audience side of the theatre, the appearance of dramatists in state, witnessing the triumphs of their pieces. When the "Conscious Lovers" was first played at Drury Lane, in 1722, Steele sat in what was called Burton's box, – an enclosed part in the centre of the first gallery, where places were kept at pit prices. From this lofty elevation, Steele enjoyed the success of a piece which respected decency throughout, and he awarded approval to all the actors concerned, except Griffin, who played Cimberton. Fielding laughed at this novel comedy, as being "as good as a sermon;" and later writers have ridiculed the author for preferring to show what manners ought to be, rather than what they are; but Steele's play – a leetle dull though it be – was creditable to him, and a benefit to the stage.

Political application of passages in plays was frequently and eagerly made by the audiences of those days, – though Walpole records an incident of lack of observation in this respect, as well as of readiness. When his father, Sir Robert, was threatened with impeachment, in 1742, Horace ridiculed the want of frankness on the part of the ministry. "The minds of the people grow much more candid," he says; "at first, they made one of the actors at Drury Lane repeat some applicable lines at the end of 'Henry IV.;' but, last Monday, when his royal highness (the Prince of Wales) had purposely bespoken 'The Unhappy Favourite,' for Mrs. Porter's benefit, they never once applied the most glaring passages; as, where they read the indictment against Robert, Earl of Essex, &c. &c."

We have seen kings at the play in presence of their people; and poets were often there, receiving as warm welcome as kings. When Thomson's "Agamemnon" was first played, Pope was present, and he was received, we are told by Johnson, "with a general clap." This shows how familiar London audiences were with their great men, and that the same men must often have exhibited themselves to the same audiences; – the Londoners being then the great playgoers. On the same night, the author of the drama was himself seated, not near Pope, but in the centre of the gallery, surrounded by some friends. There, as soon as Mrs. Cibber and Mrs. Furnival entered and spoke, he began to accompany them, by audible declamation, which his friends had some difficulty in checking. Johnson, when "Irene" was played, was more dignified and more calm. He sat forward in a conspicuous side box, solemnly dressed for the occasion, his wig new curled, a bright scarlet waistcoat – gold laced, purchased for the nonce, – and a tranquil, majestic look about him, which the pit frequently contemplated with approval. The poet was being judged by the people. But poet and people were there to heed the players; and let us now follow their example.

CHAPTER X

EXIT, JAMES QUIN

The opposition between Garrick and Barry was well sustained during the season of 1752-53. The former had a forcible second and substitute in Mossop, and an attractive lady to woo in comedy, or slay in tragedy, in Miss (or Mrs.) Bellamy; but a more accomplished still in Mrs. Pritchard. At the Garden, Barry was at his very best in health and acting, and Mrs. Cibber in the full bloom of her beauty and powers. It was a pity that such a pair of lovers should be separated, "for no two persons were so calculated to assist each other by voice, manner, and real feeling, as they were;" but, as Wilkinson records, "at the close of this season they separated, never to meet again on the same stage." Meanwhile, fashion patronised Garrick and Mrs. Pritchard, rather more lavishly than the rival pair.

Each had their especial triumphs in new pieces. Garrick and Mrs. Pritchard, in Moore's "Gamester," first played on the 7th February 1753 (Beverley, Garrick; Lewson, Mossop; Stukely, Davies; Mrs. Beverley, Mrs. Pritchard), and Barry and Mrs. Cibber in Jones's "Earl of Essex," produced at the Garden, February 21st. Admirable as Garrick was in Beverley, Mrs. Pritchard carried off the chief honours, so natural, so terribly real, and so apparently unconscious of the audience was she in her acting. She was quite "at home" in this prose tragedy; the severe lesson in which, however, after terrifying, began to displease hearers, who did not relish the caustic laid to their darling vice.

Let me also mention here Young's tragedy, the "Brothers," written thirty years before, previous to his ordination, amended by Lady Wortley Montagu, and now played in March 1753.

As soon as Young surrendered this piece to the players, for the benefit of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, he was immersed in the very thickest of theatrical squabbles, to the disgrace of his clerical profession. George Anne Bellamy, that capricious beauty on whom the delighted town showered fortune, who rode one day in gilded chariots, and the next was lying on the lowest of the steps at Westminster Bridge, wrapped in misery, and contemplating suicide; the irresistible Bellamy was then the idol of the world of fashion, and Young readily acceded to her request that she might read "The Brothers" to the players. The request rendered Garrick furious, although it was grounded on the young lady's personal knowledge of the author. The green-room was in an uproar. Roscius claimed the principal part for Mrs. Pritchard; and when George Anne poutingly offered to surrender the character assigned her by the doctor, Young vehemently opposed it with an emphatic, "No, no!" Mrs. Bellamy accordingly read the piece, and assumed the liberty of criticising it. She expressly objected to the line, "I will speak to you in thunder," as not being in a concatenation with the delicacy of the fine lady who utters it. The reverend author protested that it was the most forcible line in the piece; but Mrs. Bellamy thought it would be more so if it were improved by the introduction of "lightning" as well as thunder.

The good doctor was something nettled at the lady's wit; and he declared that "The Brothers" was the best piece he had ever written. "I am afraid, doctor," rejoined the lady, pertly, "that you will do with me as the Archbishop of Toledo did with Gil Blas on a similar occasion. But I cannot help reminding you of a tragedy called the 'Revenge!'" The author took the remark in considerable dudgeon; but the sparkling young actress, who sincerely esteemed him, exerted all her powers to smooth the plumes that her wit had ruffled; and she did this with such effect, that the doctor, after offering to cancel the line objected to, invited himself to dine with her, and did so in company with Garrick and rough Quin. "The Brothers" was acted to thin houses for eight nights, and then quietly shelved. The author realised £400 by it; to which adding from his private purse £600 more, he gave the handsome sum of £1000 to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The author was displeased alike with the town and with the players. The truth is, however, that the fault lay as much with himself as with either. The play was not original, but taken without acknowledgment, from various sources. A great portion is almost literally translated from the French piece, Persée et Démétrius. Many of the speeches are taken piecemeal from Livy.