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

The incident lacking here, abounded in Welsted's intriguing comedy, the "Dissembled Wanton," a character finely acted by Mrs. Younger121– whose marriage with Beaufort (Walker) being forbidden by her father, Lord Severne (Quin), by whom she had been sent to France, she reappears in her father's presence as Sir Harry Truelove, whose real character is known only to Emilia (Mrs. Bullock), Lord Severne's ward. Emilia's intimacy with Sir Harry causes the rupture of her marriage with Colonel Severne, and some coarse scenes have to be got through before all is explained; the respective lovers are united, and Humphrey Staple (Hall) finds it useless to urge his son Toby (W. Bullock) to get money by espousing the rich ward Emilia.

Although Welsted's comedy was lively, it was found to be ill-written. He had had time enough to polish it, for ten years previous to its production Steele had commended the plot, the moral, and the style; he had even praised its decency. Like Moore Smyth's, it could not win the town. The respective authors, who made so much ineffectual noise in their own day, would be unknown to us in this, but for the censure of Pope. In the Dunciad they enjoy notoriety with Theobald, or Cibber, Gildon, Dennis, Centlivre, and Aaron Hill. Moore was an Oxford man, who assumed his maternal grandfather's name – being his heir – and held one or two lucrative posts under Government. His father, the famous Arthur Moore, a wit, a politician, and a statesman, who was long M.P. for Grimsby, had risen, by force of his talents, to an eminent position from a humble station. Pope stooped to call Moore Smyth the son of a footman, and, when the latter name was assumed on his taking his maternal grandfather's estate, the Whigs lampooned him as born at "the paternal seat of his family – the taphouse of the prison-gate, at Monaghan."

Moore was on intimate terms with the Mapledurham ladies – the Blounts, and with others of Pope's friends, as well as with Pope himself. Some tags of the poet's lines he had introduced into his unlucky comedy, and on this Pope supported a grossly-expressed and weakly-founded charge of plagiarism. Welsted, who was of a good Leicestershire family, and of fair abilities, had moved Pope's wrath by writing satirical verses against him, and the feeling was embittered when the two dramatists united in addressing One Epistle to Pope, in which they touched him more painfully than he cared to confess. Neither Moore nor Welsted ever tempted fortune on the stage again. "Cœstus artemque repono," said the former, on the title-page of his comedy, as if he was revenging himself on society. Welsted confined himself, after some skirmishing with his critics, to his duties in the Ordnance Office. His wives were women of some mark. The first was the daughter of Purcell; the second the sister of Walker, the great defender of Londonderry.

A better gentleman than either, Philip Frowde – scholar, wit, poet, true man, friend of Addison, and a friend to all, – was praised by the critics for his "Fall of Saguntum;" but the public voice did not ratify the judgment, though Ryan, as Fabius, and Quin, as Eurydamas, with Mrs. Berriman, as Candace, – an Amazonian queen, with nothing very womanly about her, – exerted themselves to the utmost. One other failure has to be recorded – "Philip of Macedon," by David Lewis, the friend of Pope. With a dull tragedy, Pope's friend had no more chance of misleading the public, than his foes, with weak comedies. The greater poet's commendation so little influenced that public, that on the first night, with Pope himself in the house, the audience was so numerically small, – though Walker, Ryan, Quin, Mrs. Berriman, Mrs. Younger, and others, were, in their "habits" as unlike Macedonians as they could well be, – the managers deemed acting to such a house not profitable, and dismissed it accordingly. The author's final condemnation was only postponed for a night or two, when he sank, never to rise again.122

With Booth's failing health, and the ill-success of novelties produced at either house, there was a gloom over theatrical matters. But at this very time a sun was rising from behind the cloud. In one of the irregular series of performances, held at the little theatre in the Haymarket, in 1726, there appeared a young lady, in the part of Monimia, in the "Orphan," and subsequently as Cherry, in the "Beaux' Stratagem." She was pretty, clever, and eighteen; but she was not destined to become either the tragic or the comic queen. Soon after, however, thanks to the judgment of Rich, who gave her the opportunity, she was hailed as the queen of English song. She was known as Lavinia Fenton, but she was the daughter of a naval lieutenant, named Beswick. Her widowed mother had married a coffee-house keeper in Charing Cross, whose name of Fenton was assumed by his step-daughter. Before we shall hear of her at Lincoln's Inn Fields, a lieutenant123 will be offering her everything he possessed except his name; but Lavinia, without being as discreet, was even more successful than Pamela, and died a duchess.

Throughout the reign of George I., Barton Booth kept his position as the first English tragedian, – undisturbed even by the power of Quin. Associated with him, were comedians, – Wilks, Cibber, Mrs. Oldfield, Porter, Horton, and others, who shed splendour on the stage, at this period. The new dramatic poets of that reign were few, and not more than one of those few can be called distinguished. The name of Young alone survives in the memory, and that but for one tragedy, the "Revenge." Of comedies, there is not one of the reign of George I. that is even read for its merits. It is otherwise with the comedies of an actress and dramatist who died in this reign, – Susanna Centlivre; and yet a contemporary notice of her death simply states that, as an actress, "having a greater inclination to wear the breeches than the petticoat, she struck into the men's parts;" and that the dramatist "had a small wen on her left eyelid, which gave her a masculine air." Eventful to both houses was the season of 1727-28. It was the last season of Booth, at Drury Lane; and it was the first of the "Beggars' Opera," at Lincoln's Inn Fields. After thirty years' service, in the reigns of William, Anne, George I., and now in that of George II., in which Garrick was to excel him, that admirable actor was compelled, by shattered health, to withdraw. For many nights he played Henry VIII., and walked in the coronation scene, which was tacked to various other plays, in honour of the accession of George II., who, with the royal family, went, on the 7th of November, to witness Booth enact the King. On the 9th of January, Booth, after a severe struggle, played, for the sixth and last time, Julio, in the "Double Falsehood;" a play which Theobald ascribed to Shakspeare; Dr. Farmer, to Shirley; others, to Massinger; but which was chiefly Theobald's own, founded on a manuscript copy which, through Downes, the prompter, had descended to him from Betterton, and which served Colman, who certainly derived his Octavian from Julio.

The loss in Booth was, in some degree, supplied by the "profit" arising from a month's run of a new comedy by Vanbrugh and Cibber – the "Provoked Husband;" in which the Lord and Lady Townley were played by these incomparable lovers – Wilks and Mrs. Oldfield. Cibber acted Sir Francis Wronghead, and young Wetherell, Squire Richard. Vanbrugh was at this time dead – in 1726, at his house in Whitehall, of quinsey. The critics and enemies of Cibber were sadly at fault on this occasion. Hating him for his "Nonjuror," they hissed all the scenes of which they supposed him to be the author; and applauded those which they were sure were by Vanbrugh. Cibber published the imperfect play left by Sir John, and thereby showed that his adversaries condemned and approved exactly in the wrong places.

Cibber enjoyed another triumph this season. Steele, abandoning the responsibilities of management, to follow his pleasure, had submitted to a deduction of £1, 13s. 4d. nightly, to each of his partners, for performing his duties. Steele was at this time in Wales, dying, though he survived till September 1729. His creditors, meanwhile, claimed the "five marks" as their own, and the case went into the Rolls Court, before Sir Joseph Jekyll. Cibber pleaded in person the cause of himself and active partners, and so convincingly, that he obtained a decree in their favour.

In presence of this new audience, the old actor confesses he felt fear. He carried with him the heads of what he was about to urge; but, says Colley, "when it came to the critical moment, the dread and apprehension of what I had undertaken so disconcerted my courage, that though I had been used to talk to above fifty thousand people every winter, for upwards of thirty years together, an involuntary and unexpected proof of confusion fell from my eyes; and as I found myself quite out of my element, I seemed rather gasping for life, than in a condition to cope with the eminent orators against me." Cibber, however, recovered himself, and vanquished his adversaries, though two of them were of the stuff that won for them, subsequently, the dignity of Lord Chancellor.

The "Beggar's Opera" season at Lincoln's Inn Fields was the most profitable ever known there. Swift's idea of a Newgate pastoral was adopted by Gay, who, smarting under disappointment of preferment at Court, and angry at the offer to make him gentleman-usher to the youngest of the royal children, indulged his satirical humour against ministers and placement, by writing a Newgate comedy, at which Swift and Pope shook their heads, and old Congreve, for one of whose three sinecures Gay would have given his ears, was sorely perplexed as to whether it would bring triumph or calamity to its author. The songs were added, but Cibber, as doubtful as Congreve, declined what Rich eagerly accepted, and the success of which was first discerned by the Duke of Argyle, from his box on the stage, who looked at the house, and "saw it in the eyes of them."

Walker, who had been playing tragic parts, and very recently Macbeth, was chosen for Macheath, on Quin declining the highwayman. Lavinia Fenton was the Polly; Peachum, by Hippisley; and Spiller made a distinctive character of Mat o' the Mint. Walker "knew no more of music than barely singing in tune; but then his singing was supported by his inimitable action, by his speaking to the eye and charming the ear." It was at the close of a long run of the piece that Walker once tripped in his words. "I wonder," said Rich, "that you should forget the words of a part you have played so often!" "Do you think," asked Walker, with happy equivocation, "that a man's memory is to last for ever?"

Sixty-two nights in this season the "Beggar's Opera" drew crowded houses.124 Highwaymen grew fashionable, and ladies not only carried fans adorned with subjects from the opera, but sang the lighter, and hummed the coarser, songs. Sir Robert Walpole, who was present on the first night, finding the eyes of the audience turned on him as Lockit was singing his song touching courtiers and bribes, was the first to blunt the point of the satire, by calling encore. Swift says, "two great ministers were in a box together, and all the world staring at them." At this time it was said that the quarrel of Peachum and Lockit was an imitation of that of Brutus and Cassius, but the public discerned therein Walpole and his great adversary Townshend.

"The Beggar's Opera" hath knocked down Gulliver, wrote Swift to Gay. "I hope to see Pope's 'Dulness' (the first name of the Dunciad) knock down the 'Beggar's Opera,' but not till it hath fully done its job." But Gay had no "mission;" he only sought to gratify himself and the town; to satirise, not to teach or to warn; the "opera" made "Gay rich, and Rich gay;" the former sufficiently so to make him forego earning a fee of twenty guineas by a dedication, and the latter only so far sad, that at the end of the season, Lavinia Fenton, after two benefits, was taken off the stage by the Duke of Bolton. The latter had from his wedding-day hated his wife, daughter and sole heiress of the Earl of Carberry; but his love for Lavinia was so abounding, that on his wife's death, he made a Duchess of "Polly;" but their three sons were not born at a time that rendered either of them heir to the ducal coronet, which, in 1754, passed to the Duke's brother. Gay's author's night realised a gain to him of £700, and enabled him to dress in "silver and blue." While he is blazing abroad, the once great master, Booth, is slowly dying out. Let us tell his varied story as his life ebbs surely away.

CHAPTER XVIII

BARTON BOOTH

At this period it was evident that the stage was about to lose its greatest tragedian since the death of Betterton. Booth was stricken past recovery, and all the mirth caused by the "Beggar's Opera" could not make his own peculiar public forget him. Scarcely eight and thirty years had elapsed since the time when, in 1690, a handsome, well-bred lad, whose age did not then amount to two lustres, sought admission into Westminster School. Dr. Busby thought him too young; but young Barton Booth was the son of a gentleman, was of the family of Booth, Earl of Warrington, and was a remarkably clever and attractive boy. The Doctor, whose acting had been commended by Charles I., perhaps thought of the school-plays, and recognised in little Barton the promise of a lover in Terence's comedies. At all events, he admitted the applicant.

Barton Booth, a younger son of a Lancashire sire, was destined for Holy Orders. He was a fine elocutionist, and he took to Latin as readily as Erasmus; but then he had Nicholas Rowe for a school-fellow; and, one day, was cast for Pamphilus in the "Andria." Luckily, or unluckily, he played this prototype of young Bevil in Steele's "Conscious Lovers" with such ease, perfection, and charming intelligence, that the old dormitory shook with plaudits. The shouts of approbation changed the whole purpose of his sire; they deprived the church of a graceful clergyman, and gave to the stage one of the most celebrated of our actors.

He was but seventeen, when his brilliant folly led him to run away from home, and tempt fortune, by playing Oroonoko, in Dublin. The Irish audiences confirmed the judgment of the Westminster critics, and the intelligent lad moved the hands of the men and the hearts of the women, without a check, during a glorious three years of probation. And yet he narrowly escaped failure, through a ridiculous accident, when, in 1698, he made his début as Oroonoko. It was a sultry night in June. While waiting to go on, before his last scene, he inadvertently wiped his darkened face, and the lamp-black thereon came off in streaks. On entering on the stage, unconscious of the countenance he presented, he was saluted with a roar of laughter, and became much confused. The generous laughers then sustained him by loud applause. But Booth was disturbed by this accident, and to obviate its repetition, he went on, the next night, in a crape mask, made by an actress to fit close to his face. Unfortunately, in the first scene the mask slipped, and the new audience were as hilarious as the old. "I looked like a magpie," said Barton; "but they lamp-blacked me for the rest of the night, and I was flayed before I could get it off again." The mishap of the first night did not affect his triumph; this was so complete that Ashbury, the "master," made him a present of five guineas; bright forerunners of the fifty that were to be placed in his hands by delighted Bolingbroke.

The hitherto penniless player was now fairly on the first step of the ascent it was his to accomplish. When he subsequently passed through Lancashire to London, in 1701, his fame had gone before him; he reached the capital with his manly beauty to gain him additional favour, with a heavy purse, and a steady conviction of even better fortune to come. With such a personage, his hitherto angry kinsmen were, of course, reconciled forthwith.

One morning early in that year, 1701, he might have been seen leaving Lord Fitzharding's rooms at St. James's, with Bowman, the player, and making his way to Betterton's house in Great Russell Street. From the lord in waiting to Prince George of Denmark, he carries a letter of recommendation to the father of the stage; and generous old Thomas, jealous of no rival, depreciator of no talent, gave the stranger a hearty welcome; heard his story, asked for a taste of his quality, imparted good counsel, took him into training, and ultimately brought him out at Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1701, as Maximus, in Rochester's "Valentinian." Betterton played Ætius, and Mrs. Barry, Lucina. These two alone were enough to daunt so young an actor; but Booth was not vain enough to be too modest, and the public at once hailed in him a new charmer. His ease, grace, fire, and the peculiar harmony of his voice, altogether distinct from that of Betterton's, created a great impression. "Booth with the silver tongue" gained the epithet before Barry was born. Westminster subsequently celebrated him in one of her school prologues: —

"Old Roscius to our Booth must bow,'Twas then but art, 'tis nature now,"

and the district was proud of both players; of the young one of gentle blood, educated in St. Peter's College, and of the old one, the royal cook's son, who was christened in St. Margaret's, August 12,125 1635.

At first, Booth was thought of as a promising undergraduate of the buskin, and he had faults to amend. He confessed to Cibber that "he had been for some time too frank a lover of the bottle;" but, having the tipsyness of Powell ever before him as a terrible warning, he made a resolution of maintaining a sobriety of character, from which he never departed. Cibber pronounces this to be "an uncommon act of philosophy in a young man;" but he adds, that "in his fame and fortune he afterwards enjoyed the reward and benefit."

For a few years, then, Booth had arduous work to go through, and every sort of "business" to play. The House in the Fields, too, suffered from the tumblers, dancers, and sagacious animals, added to the ordinary and well-acted plays at the House in the Lane. Leisure he had also amid all his labour, to pay successful suit to a young lady, the daughter of a Norfolk baronet, Sir William Barkham, whom he married in 1704. The lady died childless six years later. Till this last period – that, too, of the death of Betterton – Booth may be said to have been in his minority as an actor, or, as Cibber puts it, "only in the promise of that reputation," which he soon after happily arrived at. Not that when that was gained he deemed himself perfect. The longest life, he used to say, was not long enough to enable an actor to be perfect in his art.

Previous to 1710 he had created many new characters; among others, Dick, in the "Confederacy;" and he had played the Ghost in "Hamlet," with such extraordinary power, such a supernatural effect, so solemn, so majestic, and so affecting, that it was only second in attraction to the Dane of Betterton. But Pyrrhus and Cato were yet to come. Meanwhile, soon after his wife's death, he played Captain Worthy, in the "Fair Quaker of Deal," to the Dorcas Zeal of Miss Santlow, destined to be his second wife – but not just yet.

The two great characters created by him, between the year when he played with Miss Santlow in Charles Shadwell's comedy, and that in which he married her, were Pyrrhus, in the "Distressed Mother" (1712), and "Cato" (1713). Within the limits stated, Booth kept household with poor Susan Mountfort, the daughter of the abler actress of that name. At such arrangements society took small objection, and beyond the fact, there was nothing to carp at in Barton's home. The latter was broken up, however – the lady being in fault – in 1718, when Booth, who had been the faithful steward of Susan's savings, consigned to her £3200, which were speedily squandered by her next "friend," Mr. Minshull. The hapless young creature became insane; in which condition it is credibly asserted that she one night went through the part of Ophelia, with a melancholy wildness which rendered many of her hearers almost as distraught as herself; soon after which she died. Meanwhile, her more faithful friend, the acknowledged successor of Betterton, achieved his two greatest triumphs – in characters originally represented by him – Pyrrhus and Cato. Those who have experienced the affliction of seeing or reading the "Distressed Mother," may remember that the heaviest part in that heavy play is that of Pyrrhus. But in acting it, Booth set the Orestes of less careful Powell in the shade. "His entrance," says Victor, "his walking and mounting to the throne, his sitting down, his manner of giving audience to the ambassador,126 his rising from the throne, his descending and leaving the stage – though circumstances of a very common character in theatrical performances, yet were executed by him with a grandeur not to be described."

But it is with "Cato" that Booth is identified. Fortunate it was for him that the play Addison had kept so long in his desk was not printed, according to Pope's advice, for readers only. Fortunate, too, was the actor in the political coincidences of the time. Marlborough, now a Whig, had asked to be appointed "commander-in-chief for life." Harley, Bolingbroke, and the other Tories, described this as an attempt to establish a perpetual dictatorship. The action and the sentiment of "Cato" are antagonistic to such an attempt, and the play had a present political, as well as a great dramatic interest. Common consent gave the part of the philosopher of Utica to Booth; Addison named young Ryan, son of a Westminster tailor, as Marcus, and the young fellow justified the nomination. Wilks, Cibber, and Mrs. Oldfield filled the other principal parts. Addison surrendered all claim to profit, and on the evening of April 14, 1713, there was excitement and expectation on both sides of the curtain.

Booth really surpassed himself; his dignity, pathos, energy, were all worthy of Betterton, and yet were in nowise after the old actor's manner. The latter was forgotten on this night, and Booth occupied exclusively the public eye, ear, and heart. The public judgment answered to the public feeling. The Tories applauded every line in favour of popular liberty, and the Whigs sent forth responsive peals to show that they, too, were advocates of popular freedom.127 The pit was in a whirlwind of delicious agitation, and the Tory occupants of the boxes were so affected by the acting of Booth, that Bolingbroke, when the play was over, sent for the now greatest actor of the day, and presented him with a purse containing fifty guineas, the contributions of gentlemen who had experienced the greatest delight at the energy with which he had resisted a perpetual dictatorship, and maintained the cause of public liberty! The managers paid the actor a similar pecuniary compliment, and for five-and-thirty128 consecutive nights "Cato" filled Drury Lane, and swelled the triumph of Barton Booth. There was no longer anything sad in the old exclamation of Steele – "Ye gods! what a part would Betterton make of Cato!" The managers, Wilks, Cibber, and Dogget, were as satisfied as the public, for the share of profit to each at the end of this eventful season amounted to £1350! When Booth and his fellow-actors, after the close of the London season, went to Oxford to play "Cato," before a learned and critical audience, "our house was in a manner invested, and entrance demanded by twelve o'clock at noon, and, before one, it was not wide enough for many who came too late for places. The same crowds continued for three days together (an uncommon curiosity in that place), and the death of Cato triumphed over the injuries of Cæsar everywhere. At our taking leave, we had the thanks of the Vice-Chancellor, 'for the decency and order observed by our whole society;' an honour," adds Cibber, proudly, "which had not always been paid on the same occasion." Four hundred and fifty pounds clear profit were shared by the managers, who gave the actors double pay, and sent a contribution of fifty pounds towards the repairs of St. Mary's Church.

The church, of which Booth was intended to be a minister, added its approbation, through Dr. Smalridge, Dean of Carlisle, who was present at the performance in Oxford. "I heartily wish all discourses from the pulpit were as instructive and edifying, as pathetic and affecting, as that which the audience was then entertained with from the stage." This is a reproach to church-preachers at the cost of a compliment to Booth; and old Compton, ex-dragoon, and now dying Bishop of London, would not have relished it. Some of the metropolitan pulpits were, no doubt, less "entertaining" than the stage, but many of them were held to good purpose; and, as for the Nonconformist chapels, of which Smalridge knew nothing – there enthusiastic Pomfret and Matthew Clarke were drawing as great crowds as Booth; Bradbury, that cheerful-minded patriarch of the Dissenters, was even more entertaining; while Neale was pathetic and earnest in Aldersgate Street; and John Gale, affecting and zealous, amid his eager hearers in Barbican. There is no greater mistake than in supposing that at this time the whole London world was engaged in resorting exclusively to the theatres, and especially to behold Booth in Cato.