Their Majesties' Servants. Annals of the English Stage (Volume 1 of 3)

Bowen was not absent from the stage more than a year. He was so jealous of his reputation, that when he had been driven to fury by the assertion that Johnson played Jacomo, in the "Libertine," better than he did, and by the emphatic confirmation of the assertion by Quin, he fastened a quarrel on the latter, got him in a room in a tavern, alone, set his back to the door, drew his sword, and assailed Quin with such blind fury, that he killed himself by falling on Quin's weapon. The dying Irishman, however, generously acquitted his adversary of all blame, and the greater actor, after trial, returned to his duty, having innocently killed, but not convinced poor Bowen, who naturally preferred his Jacomo to that of Johnson.45

Peer, later in life, came to grief also, but in a different way. The spare man was famous for two parts; the Apothecary, in "Romeo and Juliet," and the actor who humbly speaks the prologue to the play in "Hamlet." These parts he played excellently well. Nature had made him for them; but she was not constant to her meek and lean favourite; for Peer grew fat, and being unable to act any other character with equal effect, he lost his vocation, and he died lingeringly of grief, in 1713, when he had passed threescore years and ten. He had been property-man also, and in this capacity the theatre owed him, at the time of his decease, among other trifling sums, "threepence, for blood, in 'Macbeth.'"46

Norris, or "Jubilee Dicky," was a player of an odd, formal, little figure, and a squeaking voice. He was a capital comic actor, and owed his by-name to his success in playing Dicky, in the "Constant Couple." So great was this success, that his sons seemed to derive value from it, and were announced as the sons of Jubilee Dicky. He is said to have acted Cato, and other tragic characters, in a serio-burlesque manner. He was the original Scrub, and Don Lopez in the "Wonder," and died about the year 1733.

Dogget, who was before the public from 1691 to 1713, and who died in 1721, was a Dublin man – a failure in his native city, but in London a deserved favourite, for his original and natural comic powers. He always acted Shylock as a ferociously comic character. Congreve discerned his talent, and wrote for him Fondlewife in the "Old Batchelor," Sir Paul Pliant in the "Double Dealer," and the very different part of Ben in "Love for Love." This little, lively, cheerful fellow, was a conscientious actor. Somewhat illiterate – he spelt "whole" phonetically, without the w– he was a gentleman in his acts and bearing. He was prudent too, and when he retired from partnership in Drury Lane Theatre, with Cibber and Wilks (from 1709 to 1712), on the admission of Booth, which displeased him, he was considered worth £1000 a year. The consciousness of his value, and his own independence of character, gave some trouble to managers and Lord Chamberlains. On one occasion, having left Drury Lane, at some offence given, he went to Norwich, whence he was brought up to London, under my Lord's warrant. Dogget lived luxuriously on the road, at the Chamberlain's expense, and when he came to town, Chief Justice Holt liberated him, on some informality in the procedure.

Little errors of temper, and extreme carefulness in guarding his own interests, are now forgotten. Of his strong political feeling we still possess a trace. Dogget was a staunch Whig. The accession of the house of Brunswick, dated from a first of August. On that day, in 1716, and under George I., Dogget gave "an orange-coloured livery, with a badge, representing Liberty," to be rowed for by six watermen, whose apprenticeship had expired during the preceding year. He left funds for the same race to be rowed for annually, from London Bridge to Chelsea, "on the same day for ever." The match still takes place, with modifications caused by changes on and about the river; but the winners of the money-prizes, now delivered at Fishmongers' Hall, have yet to be thankful for that prudence in Dogget, which was sneered at by his imprudent contemporaries.

Dogget never took liberties with an audience; Pinkethman was much addicted to that bad habit. He would insert nonsense of his own, appeal to the gallery, and delight in their support, and the confusion into which the other actors on the stage were thrown; but the joke grew stale at last, and the offender was brought to his senses by loud disapprobation. He did not lose his self-possession; but assuming a penitent air, with a submissive glance at the audience, he said in a stage aside, "Odso, I believe I have been in the wrong here!" This cleverly-made confession brought down a round of applause, and "Pinkey" made his exit, corrected, but not disgraced. Another trait of his stage life is worthy of notice. He had been remarkable for his reputation as a speaking Harlequin, in the "Emperor of the Moon." His wit, audacity, emphasis, and point, delighted the critics, who thought that "expression" would be more perfect if the actor laid aside the inevitable mask of Harlequin. Pinkethman did so; but all expression was thereby lost. It was no longer the saucy Harlequin that seemed speaking. Pinkey, so impudent on all other occasions, was uneasy and feeble on this, and his audacity and vivacity only returned on his again assuming the sable vizard.

Pinkethman was entirely the architect of his own fortune. He made his way by talent and industry. He established the Richmond Theatre, and there was no booth at Greenwich, Richmond, or May-Fair, so well patronised as his. "He's the darling of Fortunatus," says Downes, "and has gained more in theatres and fairs in twelve years than those who have tugged at the oar of acting these fifty."

After the division of the company into two, in 1695, the following new actors appeared between that period and the close of the century. At Drury Lane, Hildebrand Horden, Mrs. Cibber,47 Johnson, Bullock, Mills, Wilks; and, as if the century should expire, reckoning a new glory, – Mrs. Oldfield. At Lincoln's Inn Fields, – Thurmond, Scudamore, Verbruggen, who joined from Drury Lane, leaving his clever wife there, Pack; and, that this house might boast a glory something like that enjoyed by its rival, in Mrs. Oldfield, – in 1700 Booth made his first appearance, with a success, the significance of which was recognised and welcomed by the discerning and generous Betterton.

Mrs. Oldfield, Wilks, and Booth, like Colley Cibber, though they appeared towards the close of the seventeenth, really belong to the eighteenth century, and I shall defer noticing them till my readers and I arrive at that latter period. The rest will require but a few words. Young Horden was a handsome and promising actor, who died of a brawl at the Rose Tavern, Covent Garden. He and two or three comrades were quaffing their wine, and laughing, at the bar, when some fine gentlemen, in an adjacent room, affecting to be disturbed by the gaiety of the players, rudely ordered them to be quiet. The actors returned an answer which brought blood to the cheek, fierce words to the lips, hand to the sword, and a resulting fight, in which the handsome Hildebrand was slain by a Captain Burgess. The captain was carried to the Gate-house, from which, says the Protestant Mercury, he was rescued at night, "by a dozen or more of fellows with short clubs and pistols." So ended, in 1696, Hildebrand Horden, not without the sympathy of loving women, who went in masks, and some without the vizard, to look upon and weep over his handsome, shrouded corpse. A couple of paragraphs in Luttrell's Diary conclude Horden's luckless story: "Saturday, 17th October, Mr. John Pitts was tried at the session for killing Mr. Horden, the player, and acquitted, he being no ways accessary thereto, more than being in company when 'twas done." On Tuesday, 30th November 1697, the diarist writes: "Captain Burgess, who killed Mr. Horden, the player, has obtained his Majesty's pardon."

Of Mrs. Cibber, it can only be said that she was the wife of a great, and of Bullock, that he was the father of a good, actor. To Johnson no more praise can be awarded than to Bullock.48 William49 Mills deserves a word or two more of notice than these last. He was on the stage from 1696 to 1737,50 and though only a "solid" actor, he excelled Cibber, in Corvino, in Jonson's "Volpone;" surpassed Smith in the part of Pierre, and was only second to Quin, in Volpone himself. His Ventidius, in Dryden's tragedy, "All for Love," to Booth's Anthony, is praised for its natural display of the true spirit of a rough and generous soldier. Of his original parts, the chief were Jack Stanmore, in "Oroonoko;" Aimwell, in the "Beaux Stratagem;" Charles, in the "Busy Body;" Pylades, in the "Distressed Mother;" Colonel Briton, in the "Wonder;" Zanga, in the "Revenge;" and Manly, in the "Provoked Husband." That some of these were beyond his powers is certain; but he owed his being cast for them to the friendship of Wilks, when the latter was manager. To a like cause may be ascribed the circumstance of his having the same salary as Betterton, £4 per week, and £1 for his wife; but this was not till after Betterton's death.

At Lincoln's Inn Fields, Thurmond, though a respectable actor, failed to shake any of the public confidence in Betterton. Of Scudamore, I have already spoken. Pack was a vivacious comic actor, whose "line" is well indicated in the characters of Brass, Marplot, and Lissardo, of which he was the original representative. He withdrew from the stage in 1721, a bachelor; and, in the meridian of life, opened a tavern in Charing Cross. I have now named the principal actors and actresses who first appeared between the Restoration and the year 1701, Betterton and Mrs. Barry being the noblest of the players of that half century; Cibber, Booth, and Mrs. Oldfield, the bright promises of the century to come. It is disappointing, however, to find that in the very last year of the seventeenth century "the grand jury of Middlesex presented the two play-houses, and also the bear-garden, as nuisances and riotous and disorderly assemblies." So Luttrell writes, in December 1700, at which time, as contemporary accounts inform us, the theatres were "pestered with tumblers, rope-dancers, and dancing men and dogs from France." Betterton was then in declining health, and appeared only occasionally; the houses, lacking other attraction, were ill attended, and public taste was stimulated by offering the "fun of a fair," where Mrs. Barry had drowned a whole house in tears. The grand jury of Middlesex did not see that with rude amusements the spectators grew rude too. The jury succeeded in preventing play-bills from being posted in the city, and denounced the stage as a pastime which led the way to murder. The last denunciation was grounded on the fact, that Sir Andrew Slanning had been killed just before, on his way from the play-house. When men wore swords and hot tempers these catastrophes were not infrequent. In 1682, a coffee-house was sometimes turned into a shambles by gentlemen calling the actors at the Duke's House "Papists." What was the cause of the fray in which Sir Andrew fell I do not know. Whatever it was, he was run through the body by Mr. Cowlan; and that the latter took some unfair advantage is to be supposed, since he was found guilty of murder, and in December 1700 was executed at Tyburn, with six other malefactors, who, on the same day, in the Newgate slang of the period, went Westward Hoe!

On the poor players fell all the disgrace; but I think I shall be able to show, in the next chapter, that the fault lay rather with the poets. These, in their turn, laid blame upon the public; but it is the poet's business to elevate, and not to pander to a low taste. The foremost men of the tuneful brotherhood, of the period from the Restoration to the end of the century, have much to answer for in this last respect.

CHAPTER IX

THE DRAMATIC POETS

Noble, gentle, and humble Authors

It is a curious fact, that the number of dramatic writers between the years 1659-1700, inclusive, exceeds that of the actors. A glance at the following list will show this.

Sir W. Davenant, Dryden, Porter, Mrs. Behn, Lee, Cowley, Hon. James Howard, Shadwell, Sir S. Tuke, Sir R. Stapylton, Lord Broghill (Earl of Orrery), Flecknoe, Sir George Etherege, Sir R. Howard, Lacy (actor), Betterton (actor), Earl of Bristol, Duke of Buckingham, Dr. Rhodes, Sir Edward Howard, Settle, Caryll (Earl of Caryll, of James II.'s creation), Henry Lucius Carey (Viscount Falkland), Duke of Newcastle, Shirley, Sir Charles Sedley, Mrs. Boothby, Medbourne (actor), Corye, Revet, Crowne, Ravenscroft, Wycherley, Arrowsmith, Neville Payne, Sir W. Killigrew, Duffet, Sir F. Fane, Otway, Durfey, Rawlins, Leanard, Bankes, Pordage, Rymer, Shipman, Tate, Bancroft, Whitaker, Maidwell, Saunders (a boy-poet), and Southerne.

Here are already nearly threescore authors (some few of whom had commenced their career prior to the Restoration) who supplied the two theatres, between 1659 and 1682, in which latter year began that "Union," under which London had but one theatre till the year 1695.

Within the thirteen years of the Union, appeared as dramatic writers,

The Earl of Rochester; – Jevon, Mountfort, Harris, Powell, and Carlisle (actors); Wilson, Brady, Congreve, Wright, and Higden.

From the period of the dissolution of the Union to the end of the century occur the names of,

Colley Cibber (actor), Mrs. Trotter (Cockburn), Gould, Mrs. Pix, Mrs. Manley, Norton, Scott, Dogget (actor), Dryden, jun., Lord Lansdowne (Granville), Dilke, Sir John Vanbrugh, Gildon, Drake, Filmer, Motteux, Hopkins, Walker, W. Phillips, Farquhar, Boyer, Dennis, Burnaby, Oldmixon, Mrs. Centlivre (Carroll), Crauford, and Rowe.

In the above list there are above a hundred names of authors, none of whose productions can now be called stock-pieces; though of some four or five of these writers a play is occasionally performed, to try an actor's skill or tempt an indifferent audience.

Of the actors who became authors, Cibber alone was eminently successful, and of him I shall speak apart. The remainder were mere adapters. Of Betterton's eight plays, I find one tragedy borrowed from Webster; and of his comedies, one was taken from Marston; a second raised on Molière's "George Dandin"; a third was never printed; his "Henry the Fourth" was one of those unhallowed outrages on Shakspeare, of which the century in which it appeared was prolific; his "Bondman" was a poor reconstruction of Massinger's play, in which Betterton himself was marvellously great; and his "Prophetess" was a conversion of Beaumont and Fletcher's tragedy into an opera, by the efficient aid of Henry Purcell, who published the music in score, in 1691. There was noble music wedded to noble words, and for the recreation of those who could appreciate neither; there was a dance of quaint figures from whom, when about to sit down, the chairs slipped under them, took up the measure, and concluded by dancing it out.

Medbourne produced only his translation of the "Tartuffe," Jevon only one comedy. Mountfort, like Betterton, was an indifferent author. His "Injured Lovers" ends almost as tragically as the apocryphal play in which all the characters being killed at the end of the fourth act, the concluding act is brought to a close by their executors. In Mountfort's loyal tragedy all the principal personages receive their quietus, and the denouement is left in the hands of a solitary and wicked colonel, with a contented mind. "Edward the Third" is so much more natural than the above, that it is by some assigned to Bancroft, while "Zelmane" is only hypothetically attributed to Mountfort, on the ground, apparently, of its absurdities. In the preface to his "Successful Strangers," Mountfort modestly remarks, "I have a natural inclination to poetry, which was born and not bred in me." He showed small inventive power in his bustling comedy, "Greenwich Park," and less respect for a master in minstrelsy, when he turned poor Kit Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus" into an impassioned sort of burlesque, with the addition of Harlequin and Scaramouch to give zest to the buffoonery!

Carlisle, the actor who fell at Aghrim, was the author of the "Fortune Hunters;" and Joseph Harris, who was a poor comedian, and the marrer of four adapted and unsuccessful plays, resumed under Queen Anne his original vocation of engraver to the Mint. The age was one of adapters, whose cry was that Shakspeare would not attract, and accordingly George Powell combined authorship with acting, and borrowed from Shirley, from Brome, and from Middleton. Mrs. Pix, and the romancers, produced a few plays, from one of which a recent dramatist has stolen as boldly as George himself was wont to steal. I allude to the "Imposture Defeated," in which Artan (a demon) enables Hernando, a physician, to foretell the fate of each patient, according as Artan takes his stand at the foot or at the head of the bed. One word will suffice for Dogget's contribution to stage literature. He was the author of one lively, but not edifying, piece, entitled the "Country Wake," in which he provided himself with a taking part called Hob, and one for Mrs. Bracegirdle – Flora. In a modified form, this piece was known to our grandfathers as "Flora;" or, "Hob in the Well."

The actors themselves, then, were not efficient as authors. Let us now see what the noble gentlemen, the amateur rather than professional poets, contributed towards the public entertainment, and their own reputation, during the last half of the seventeenth century.

They may be reckoned at a dozen and a half, from dukes to knights. Of the two dukes, Buckingham and Newcastle, the former is the more distinguished dramatic writer. He was a man of great wit and no virtue; a member of two universities, but no honour to either. He was one who respected neither his own wife nor his neighbour's, and was faithful to the King only as long as the King would condescend to obey his caprices. From 1627, when he was born, to April 1688, the year of his death, history has placed no generous action of his upon record, but has registered many a crime and meanness. He lived a profligate peer, in a magnificence almost oriental; he died a beggar; bankrupt in everything but impudence. Dryden and Pope have given him everlasting infamy; the latter not without a touch of pity, felt not at all by the former. Historians have justified the severity of the poets; Gilbert Burnet has dismissed him with a sneer, and Baxter has thrown in a word on behalf of his humanity.

His play of the "Chances" was a mere adaptation of the piece so named, by Beaumont and Fletcher. Plays which were attributed to him, but of which he was not the author, need not be mentioned. The Duke's dramatic reputation rests on his great burlesque tragedy, the "Rehearsal;" but even in this he is said to have had the assistance of Butler, Martin Clifford, and Dr. Sprat. Written to deride the bombastic tragedies then in vogue, Davenant, Dryden, and Sir Robert Howard are, by turns, struck at, under the person of the poet Bayes; and the irritability of the second, under the allusions, are perhaps warrant that the satire was good. The humour is good, too; the very first exhibition of it excited the mirth which afterwards broke into peal upon peal of laughter. The rehearsed play commences with a scene between the royal usher and the royal physician, in a series of whispers; for, as Mr. Bayes remarks, the two officials were plotting against the King; but this fact it was necessary, as yet, to keep from the audience!

Mr. Cavendish, whose services in the royal cause deservedly earned for him that progress through the peerage which terminated in his creation as Duke of Newcastle, was the opposite of Buckingham in most things save his taste for magnificence, in which he surpassed Villiers. Two thousand pounds were as cheerfully spent on feasting Charles I., as the Duke's blood was vainly shed for the same monarch in the field. He lived like a man who had the purse of Fortunatus; but in exile at Antwerp, he pawned his best clothes and jewels, that he and his celebrated wife might have the means of existence. He was the author of a few plays, two of which were represented after the Restoration. The "Country Captain," and "Variety," were composed in the reign of Charles I. The "Humourous Lovers," and the "Triumphant Widow," subsequently. These are bustling but immoral comedies, suiting, but not correcting the vices of the times; and singular, in their slip-shod style, as coming from the author of the pompous treatise on horses and horsemanship. Pepys ascribes the "Humourous Lovers" to the Duchess. He calls it a "silly play; the most silly thing that ever came upon a stage. I was sick to see it, but yet would not but have seen it, that I might the better understand her." Pepys is equally severe against the "Country Captain." The Duke seems to have aimed at the delineation of character, particularly in "Variety," and the "Triumphant Widow, or, the Medley of Humours." Johnson grieves over the oblivion which, in his time, had fallen on these works, and later authors have declared that the Duke's comedies ought not to have been forgotten. They have at least been remembered by some of our modern novelists in want of incident.

Of the three earls, all of whose pieces were produced previous to 1680, there is not much to be said in praise. The eccentric, clever, brave, inconsistent, contradictory George Digby, Earl of Bristol, he who turned Romanist at the instigation of Don John of Austria, and aiming at office himself, conspired against Clarendon, was the author of one acted piece, "Elvira," one of the two out of which Mrs. Centlivre built up her own clever bit of mosaic, the "Wonder." Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, in whom all the vices of Buckingham were exaggerated; to whom virtue and honour seemed disgusting, and even the affectation of them, or of ordinary decency, an egregious folly, found leisure in the least feverish hour of some five years' drunkenness, to give to the stage an adaptation of "Valentinian," by Beaumont and Fletcher, in which he assigned a part to Mrs. Barry – the very last that any other lover would have thought of for his mistress. The noble poet, little more than thirty years old, lay in a dishonoured grave when his piece was represented, in 1680;51 but the young actress just named, gaily alluded, in a prologue, to the demure nymphs in the house who had succumbed, nothing loath, to the irresistible blandishments of this very prince of blackguards.

The Earl of Caryll was a man of another spirit. He was the head of the family to which Pope's Carylls belonged, and being a faithful servant of James II., in adversity as well as in prosperity, the King made him an earl, at that former period, when the law of England did not recognise the creation. Caryll was of the party who talked of the unpopularity of Shakspeare, and who for the poet's gold offered poor tinsel of their own. His rhymed drama of the "English Princess, or the death of Richard the Third," owed its brief favour to the acting of Betterton, who could render even nonsense imposing. His comedy of "Sir Solomon, or the Cautious Coxcomb," was "taken from the French." The chief scenes were mere translations of Molière's "Ecole des Femmes;" but life, and fun, and wit were given to them again by Betterton, who in the comic old Sir Solomon shook the sides of the "house," as easily as he could, in other characters, move them to wonder, or melt them to tears.

In 1664, another "lance was broken with Shakspeare" by Lord Orrery, the Lord Broghill of earlier days. There was something dramatic in this lord's life. He was a marvellous boy, younger son of a marvellous father, the "great Earl of Cork." Before he was fifteen, Dublin University was proud of him. At that age he went on the "grand tour," at twenty married the Earl of Suffolk's daughter, and landed in Ireland, to keep his wedding, on the very day of the outbreak of the Rebellion of 1641. The young bridegroom fought bravely for homestead and king, and went into exile when that king was slain; but he heeded the lure of Cromwell, won for him the victory of Macroom, rescued him from defeat at Clonmel, and crushed Muskerry and his numerous Papal host. From Richard Cromwell, Broghill kept aloof, and helped forward the Restoration, for which service Charles made him a peer – Earl of Orrery. The earl showed his gratitude by deifying kings, and inculcating submissiveness, teaching the impeccability of monarchs, and the extreme naughtiness of their people. Pepys comically bewails the fact, that on going to see a new piece by Orrery, he sees only an old one under a new name, such wearying sameness is there in the rhymed phrases of them all.