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

On the following June, actors and patentees were at issue; and their dissensions were not quelled by the Lord Chamberlain closing the house; from which Rich, of whose oppressions the actors complained, was driven by Collier, the M.P. for Truro, to whom, for political as well as other reasons, a licence was granted to open Drury Lane. When Collier took forcible possession of the house, he found that Rich had carried off most of the scenery and costumes; but he made the best of adverse circumstances and a company lacking Betterton and other able actors; and he opened Drury on November 23rd, 1709, under the direction of Aaron Hill, with "Aurungzebe," and Booth for his leading tragedian.

Booth wished to appear in a new tragedy, and Hill wrote in a week that "Elfrid" which the public damned in a night.91 Hill was always ready to write. At Westminster, he had filled his pockets by writing the exercises of young gentlemen who had not wit for the work; and by and by he will be writing the "Bastard," for Savage. Meanwhile, here was "Elfrid," written and condemned. The author allowed that it was "an unpruned wilderness of fancy, with here and there a flower among the leaves, but without any fruit of judgment." At this time, Hill was a young fellow of four and twenty, with great experience and some reputation. A friendless young "Westminster," he had at fifteen found his way alone to Constantinople, where he obtained a patron in the ambassador, the sixth Lord Paget, – a distant relation of the youthful Aaron. Under the peer's auspices, Hill travelled extensively in the East; and subsequently, ere he was yet twenty, accompanied Sir William Wentworth, as travelling tutor, over most of Europe. Later, his poem of "Camillus," in defence of Lord Peterborough, procured for him the post of secretary to that brave and eccentric peer, with whom he remained till his marriage. Then Aaron lived with a divided allegiance to his wife and the stage, for the improvement of which he had many an impracticable theory. He would willingly have written a tragedy for Booth once a week.

Tragedies not being in request, Hill tried farce, and produced his "Walking Statue," a screamer, as improbable as his "Elfrid" was unpruned. The audience would not tolerate it; and Hill came before them in a few days with a comedy, – "Trick upon Trick," at which the house howled rather than laughed.92 Whereupon Hill new-nibbed his pen, and addressed himself to composition again.

The treasury gained more by the appearance of Elrington, in "Oroonoko," than by Hill's novelties. Then, the trial of putting the fairy dancer, Santlow, into boy's clothes, and giving her the small part of the Eunuch in "Valentinian" to play, and an epilogue to be spoken in male attire, succeeded so well, that she was cast for Dorcas Zeal in Charles Shadwell's "Fair Quaker of Deal," wherein she took the town, and won the heart of Booth. In this character-piece Flip, the sea-brute, is contrasted with Beau Mizen, the sea-fop; but the latter is, in some degree, a copy of Baker's Maiden, the progenitor of the family of Dundreary.

From Collier, there went over to the Haymarket, under Swiney, Betterton, Wilks, Cibber, Dogget, Mills, Mrs. Barry, Oldfield, and other actors of mark. Drury had opened with Dryden. The Queen's Theatre, Haymarket, commenced its season on the 15th of September 1709, with Shakspeare. The play was "Othello," with Betterton in the Moor; but oh! shade of the bard of Avon, there was between the acts a performance by "a Mr. Higgins, a posture-master from Holland," and the critics, silently admiring "old Thomas," loudly pronounced the feats of the pseudo-Hollander to be "marvellous." The only great event of the season was the death of Betterton, soon after his benefit, on the 13th of April 1710, of which I have already spoken at length.

About this period, the word encore was introduced at the operatic performances in the Haymarket, and very much objected to by plain-going Englishmen. It was also the custom of some who desired the repetition of a song to cry altra volta! altra volta! The Italian phrase was denounced as vigorously as the French exclamation; and a writer in the Spectator asks when it may be proper for him to say it in English, and would it be vulgar to shout again! again!

The season of 1710-11 was a languishing one. Players and playgoers seemed to feel that the great glory of the stage was extinguished in the death of Betterton and the departure of Mrs. Barry. Collier, restless and capricious, gave up Drury Lane for opera at the Haymarket, Swiney exchanging with him. The united company of actors assembling at the former, contributed £200 a year as a sort of compensation to Collier, as well as refraining from playing on a Wednesday, when an opera was given on that night. The Thursday audiences were all the larger for this; but the inferior actors, who were paid by the day, felt the hardship of this arrangement, and noblemen, who espoused the part of the English players against the foreign singers, expressed an opinion, as they walked about behind the scenes, that "it was shameful to take part of the actors' bread from them to support the silly diversions of people of quality."

Booth and Powell shared the inheritance of Betterton, and Mrs. Bradshaw succeeded to that of Mrs. Barry; but Mrs. Porter was soon to dispute it with her. The old stock pieces were well cast, but no new play obtained toleration for above a night or two. Mrs. Centlivre's "Marplot,"93 a poor sequel to the "Busy Body," brought her nothing more substantial than a dedication fee of £40 from the Earl of Portland, the son of William III.'s "Bentinck." This was more than Johnson obtained for dedicating his condemned comedy, the "Generous Husband," to the last of the three Lords Ashburnham, who were alive in 1710. Poor Elkanah Settle, too, pensioned poet of the city, and a brother of the Charterhouse, was employed by Booth to adapt Beaumont and Fletcher's "Knight of the Burning Pestle," which Elkanah transformed to the "City Ramble," Booth playing Rinaldo. Settle was so unpopular at this time, that he brought out his play in the summer season when the town was scantily peopled. The only result was that it was damned by a thin house instead of a crowded one.

At the close of the season Swiney returned to the Opera; Collier to Drury Lane, under a new licence to himself, Wilks, Cibber, and Dogget. Collier withdrew, however, from the management, and the three actors named paid him £700 a year for doing nothing. From this time may be dated the real prosperity of the sole and united company of actors, for whom a halcyon score of years was now beginning. On the other hand, the opera only brought ruin, and drove into exile its able but unlucky manager, Swiney.

CHAPTER XV

UNION, STRENGTH, PROSPERITY

Naturally and justifiably jubilant is Colley Cibber when giving the history of the united companies. That union led to a prosperity of twenty years, though the union itself did not last so long. We now find houses crowded beyond anything known to that generation; and that not so much from surpassing excellence on the part of the actors, as from their zeal, industry, and the willingness with which they worked together. This success doubled the salaries of the comedians, and "in the twenty years, while we were our own directors," says Colley, with honest pride, "we never had a creditor that had occasion to come twice for his bill; every Monday morning discharged us of all demands, before we took a shilling for our own use."

These halcyon days had, no doubt, their little passing clouds; some prejudices and jealousies would arise among the leaders, as excellence began to manifest itself from below; but these, as Cibber remarks, with a lofty philosophy, were "frailties, which societies of a higher consideration, while they are composed of men, will never be entirely free from." Cibber and his fellows deserved to prosper. Although they enjoyed a monopoly they did not abuse it; and £1500 profit to each of the three managers, in one year, the greatest sum ever yet so realised on the English stage, showed what might be done, without the aid of "those barbarous entertainments," of acrobats and similar personages, for which the dignified Cibber had the most profound and wholesome horror.

While the management was in the hands of Cibber, Wilks, and Dogget, the good temper of the first was imperturbable. He yielded, or seemed to yield, to the hot hastiness of Wilks, and lent himself to the captious waywardness of Dogget. However impracticable the latter was, Cibber always left a way open to reconciliation. In the very bitterest of their feuds, "I never failed to give him my hat and 'your servant,' whenever I met him, neither of which he would ever return for above a year after; but I still persisted in my usual salutation, without observing whether it was civilly received or not." Dogget would sit sullen and silent, at the same table with Cibber, at Will's – the young gentlemen of the town loitering about the room, to listen to the critics, or look at the actors – and Cibber would treat the old player with deference, till the latter was graciously pleased to be softened, and ask for a pinch from Colley's box, in token of reconciliation.

Almost the only word approaching to complaint advanced by Cibber refers to public criticism. The newspapers, and especially Mist's Journal, he says, "took upon them very often to censure our management, with the same freedom and severity as if we had been so many ministers of state." This is thoroughly Cibberian in humour and expression. For these critics, however, Colley had a supreme contempt. Wilks and Booth, who succeeded Dogget, were more sensitive, and would fain have made reply; but Cibber remarked that the noise made by the critics was a sign of the ability and success of the management. If we were insignificant, said he, and played only to empty houses, these fellows would be silent.

When the fashion of patronising the folly of pantomimes came in, Cibber reluctantly produced one at Drury Lane, but only "as crutches to the plays." In the regular drama itself, it seemed immaterial to him what he acted, so that the piece was well supported; and accordingly when the "Orphan" was revived, and the town had just been falsely told that Cibber was dead, "I quietly stole myself," he says, "into the part of the Chaplain, which I had not been seen in for many years before;" and as the audience received him with delight, Colley was satisfied and triumphant.

In the first season the poets were less successful than the players; Johnson's "Wife's Relief,"94 and Mrs. Centlivre's "Perplexed Lovers," were failures. But the lady fell with some éclat. The epilogue produced more sensation than the play. Prince Eugene was then in England, and to Mrs. Oldfield were entrusted lines complimentary to the military talents of the Prince, and his brother in arms, the Duke of Marlborough. Political feuds were then so embittered, that the managers were afraid to allow the epilogue to be spoken; but on the second night, they fortified themselves by the Chamberlain's licence, and brave Mistress Oldfield delivered it, in spite of menacing letters addressed to her. The piece fell; but the authoress printed it, with a tribute of rhymed homage to the prince, who acknowledged the same by sending her a handsome and heavy gold snuff-box, with this inscription: – "The present of his Highness Prince Eugene of Savoy to Susanna Centlivre." Those heavy boxes – some of them furnished with a tube and spring for shooting the snuff up the nose, were then in fashion, and prince could hardly give more fitting present to poetess than a snuff-box, for which —

"Distant climes their various arts employ,To adorn and to complete the modish toy.Hinges with close-wrought joints from Paris come,Pictures dear bought from Venice and from Rome.Some think the part too small of modish sand,Which at a niggard pinch they can command.Nor can their fingers for that task suffice,Their nose too greedy, not their hand too nice,To such a height with these is fashion grown,They feed their very nostrils with a spoon."

So sang the Rev. Samuel Wesley, in his somewhat indelicate satire on snuff, addressed to his sister, Keziah. Mrs. Centlivre's box probably figured at Drury Lane, and in very good company, with other boxes carried by ladies; for, says the poet —

"They can enchant the fair to such degree,Scarce more admired could French romances be,Scarce scandal more beloved or darling flattery;Whether to th' India House they take their way,Loiter i' the Park, or at the toilet stay,Whether at church they shine, or sparkle at the play."

The great night of this season was that in which Philips' version of Racine's "Andromaque" was played, – the 17th of March, 1712. Of the "Distressed Mother," the following was the original cast: – Orestes, Powell; Pyrrhus, Booth; Pylades, Mills; Andromache, Mrs. Oldfield; Hermione, Mrs. Porter. The English piece is even duller than the French one; but there is great scope in it for good declamatory actors, and Booth especially led the town on this night to see in him the undoubted successor of Betterton.

All that could be done to render success assured, was done on this occasion, not only by the poet, but by his friends. Before the tragedy was acted, the Spectator informed the public that a masterpiece was about to be represented. On the first night, there was a packed audience of hearty supporters. During the run of the play,95 the Spectator related the effect the tender tale had had on Sir Roger de Coverley.

We learn from Addison, in the puff preliminary, that at the reading of the "Distressed Mother," by one of the actors, – the players, who listened, were moved to tears, and that the reader, in his turn, was so overcome by his emotions, "that he was frequently obliged to lay down the book, and pause, to recover himself and give vent to the humanity which rose in him at some irresistible touches of the imagined sorrow." On the first night of its being played, the performance was said to be "at the desire of several ladies of quality." Sir Roger de Coverley, with Will Honeycombe and Captain Sentry, backed by two or three old servants, – the Captain wearing the sword he had wielded at Steinkirk, are described as being in the pit, early – four o'clock – before the house was full and the candles were lighted. There was access then for the public for a couple of hours before the curtain rose. The Knight thought the King of France could not strut it more imposingly than Booth in Pyrrhus. He found the plot so ingeniously complicated, that he could not guess how it would end, or what would become of Pyrrhus. His sympathies oscillated between the ladies, with a word of smart censure now and then for either; calling Andromache a perverse widow, and anon, Hermione "a notable young baggage." Turgid as this English adaptation now seems, – to Addison, its simplicity was one of its great merits. "Why!" says Sir Roger, "there is not a single sentence in the play that I don't know the meaning of!" It was listened to with a "very remarkable silence and stillness," broken only by the applause; and a compliment is paid to Mills who played Pylades, in the remark, "though he speaks but little, I like the old fellow in whiskers as well as any of them."

The epilogue, spoken by Mrs. Oldfield, and undoing all the soft emotions wrought by the tragedy, was repeated twice, for several consecutive nights. The audience could not have enough of it, and long years after, they called for it, whenever the piece was revived. Budgell was the reputed author, but Tonson printed it, with Addison's name as the writer. The latter, however, ordered that of Budgell to be restored, "that it might add weight to the solicitation which he was then making for a place."

Thus Ambrose Philips showed that he could write something more vigorous than the Pastorals, which had given him a name while at the University. He took higher rank among the wits at Button's Coffee-house, and had no reason to fear the censure or ridicule of men like Henry Carey, who fastened upon him the name of Namby Pamby. Success made the author not less solemn, but more pompous. He wore the sword, which he could boldly use, although his foes called him Quaker Philips – with an air; and the successful author of a new tragedy could become arrogant enough to hang a rod up at Button's, and threaten Pope with a degrading application of it, for having expressed contempt of the authors Pastorals.96

Whatever may be thought of this, Rowe and Philips were the first authors of the last century who wrote tragedies which have been played in our own times. But a greater than either was rising; for Addison was giving the last touches to "Cato;" and he, with Steele and others, was imparting his views and ideas on the subject to favourite actors over tavern dinners.

At the close of this season, was finished the brief career of an actor, who was generally considered to possess rare talents, but who was variously judged of by such competent judicial authority as Steele and Cibber. I allude to Richard Estcourt. His London career as a player lasted little more than half a dozen years, during which he distinguished himself by creating Serjeant Kite and Sir Francis Gripe. Downes asserts that he was a born actor. Steele mournfully says, "If I were to speak of merit neglected, misapplied, or misunderstood, might I not say that Estcourt has a great capacity? but it is not the interest of those who bear a figure on the stage that his talents were understood. It is their business to impose upon him what cannot become him, or keep out of his hands anything in which he could shine." Chetwood alludes to his habit of interpolating jokes and catches of his own, which raised a laugh among the general public, but which made critics frown. Cibber has been accused of being unjust to him, but Colley's judgment seems to be rendered with his usual fairness, lucidity, and skill.

"This man," says Cibber in his Apology, "was so amazing and extraordinary a mimic, that no man or woman, from the coquette to the privy-counsellor, ever moved or spoke before him, but he could carry their voice, look, mien, and motion, instantly into another company. I have heard him make long harangues and form various arguments, even in the manner of thinking, of an eminent pleader at the bar, with every the least article and singularity of his utterance so perfectly imitated that he was the very alter ipse, scarce to be distinguished from his original. Yet more, I have seen upon the margin of the written part of Falstaff, which he acted, his own notes and observations upon almost every speech of it, describing the true spirit of the humour, and with what tone of voice, with what look or gesture, each of them ought to be delivered. Yet in his execution upon the stage, he seemed to have lost all those just ideas he had formed of it, and almost through the character he laboured under a heavy load of flatness. In a word, with all his skill in mimicry, and knowledge of what ought to be done, he never upon the stage could bring it truly into practice, but was, upon the whole, a languid, unaffecting actor."

His Kite, however, is said to have been full of lively, dashing, natural humour. Off the stage, Estcourt's society was eagerly sought for, and he was to be met in the best company, where, on festive nights, he recited, gave his imitations, and was not too proud to pocket his guerdon. The old Duke of Marlborough gladly held fellowship with Estcourt, and as the latter occasionally got guerdon out of the Duke, he must have been a great and very affecting actor indeed. It was probably his spirit of good fellowship which induced him to leave the stage (in 1711) for another calling. This change was sufficiently important for the Spectator to notice, with a fine bit of raillery, too: – "Estcourt has lain in, at the Bumper, Covent Garden, neat, natural wines, to be sold wholesale, as well as retail, by his old servant, trusty Anthony (Aston). As Estcourt is a person altogether unknowing in the wine trade, it cannot but be doubted that he will deliver the wine in the same natural purity that he receives it from the merchants," &c.

On the foundation of the "Beef Steak Club," Estcourt was appointed Providore; and in the exercise of this office to the chief wits and leading men of the nation, he wore a small gold gridiron, suspended round his neck by a green silk riband. Dr. King alludes to the company, their qualities, and the dignity of the ex-actor, in his Art of Cookery:

"He that of honour, wit, and mirth partakes,May be a fit companion o'er beef steaks.His name may be to future times unrolled,In Estcourt's book, whose gridiron's made of gold."

Estcourt died in 1712, and was buried in the "yard" of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. Near him lie Kynaston and Wycherley, Susanna Centlivre, Wilks, Macklin, and other once vivacious stage celebrities of later times.

I have already had to notice, and shall have to do so again, the despotic power exercised by the Lord Chamberlain over theatrical affairs. One of the most remarkable instances presents itself this year, in connection with the Opera House, indeed, but still illustrative of my subject. John Hughes, who will subsequently appear as a dramatic author, of purer pretensions, had written the words for the composer of "Calypso and Telemachus." A crowd of the "quality," connoisseurs and amateurs, had attended the rehearsal, with which they were so satisfied that a subscription was formed to support the performance of the opera. This aroused the jealousy of the Italian company then in London, who appealed for protection to the Duke of Shrewsbury, the then Chamberlain.

This Duke was the Charles Talbot, in whose house it had been decided that William of Orange should be invited to England, and who, corresponding with James after William was on the throne, had been discovered, and forgiven. He had been loved, it is said, by Queen Mary and the Duchess of Marlborough; but this able, gentle, wayward, and one-eyed statesman, was at this present time the husband of an Italian lady, and on this fact, albeit she was not a dulcis uxor, the Italian singers founded their hopes. As the lady's brother was hanged at Tyburn, half a dozen years later, for murdering his servant, Shrewsbury had no great cause, ultimately, to be proud of the connexion. Nevertheless, it served the purpose of the foreign vocalists, it would seem, as the Chamberlain protected their interests, and issued an order for the suppression of the subscription, adding, that the doors must be opened at the lowest playhouse prices, or not at all. Even under this discouragement the opera was played with success, and was subsequently revived, with good effect, at Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Romantic drama, light, bustling comedy, with less vice and not much less wit than of old, and the severest classical tragedy, challenged the favour of the town in the Drury Lane season of 1712-13. Severe tragedy won the wreath from its competitors.

First on the list was fat Charles Johnson, who was even a more frequent lounger at Button's than Ambrose Philips, and who had a play ready for representation every year and a half. It is a curious fact, that his "Successful Pirate," a sort of melodrama, in five acts, the scene in Madagascar, and the action made up of fighting and wooing, aroused the ire of the virtuous Dennis. This censor wrote to the Lord Chamberlain, complaining that in such a piece as the above the stage was prostituted, villainy encouraged, and the theatre disgraced; that same theatre where, a few nights previously, had been acted the "Old Batchelor," and the "Committee," which some people, like Sir Roger, considered a "good Church of England comedy." The piece, however, made no impression; nor was much greater effected by that learned proctor, Taverner's "French Advocates,"97 nor by the farcical "Humours of the Army," which the ex-soldier Charles Shadwell had partly constructed out of his own military reminiscences, as he sat at his desk in the Revenue Office at Dublin.

Equally indifferent were the public to a comedy called the "Wife of Bath," written by a young man who had been a mercer's apprentice in the Strand, and who was now house-steward and man of business to the widowed Duchess of Monmouth at her residence, no longer in the mansion on the south side of Soho Square, about to be turned into auction rooms, but in fresh, pure, rustic, Hedge Lane, which now, as Whitcombe Street, lacks all freshness, purity, and rusticity. The young man's name was Gay; but it was not on this occasion that he was to make it famous.