CHAPTER XXII.

No. 178. The Church Militant.

The country had now begun to experience the miseries of war, and to smart under them; and the cavaliers were especially reproached for the cruelty with which they plundered and ill-treated people whenever they gained the mastery. Colonel Lunsford was especially notorious for the barbarities committed by himself and his men—to such a degree that he was popularly accused of eating children, a charge which is frequently alluded to in the popular songs of the time. Thus one of these songs couples him with two other obnoxious royalists:—

From Fielding, and from Vavasour,Both ill-affected men,From Lunsford eke deliver us,Who eateth up children.

From Fielding, and from Vavasour,

Both ill-affected men,

From Lunsford eke deliver us,

Who eateth up children.

No. 179. The Sucklington Faction.

In the third compartment of the caricature just mentioned, we see in the background of the picture, behind colonel Lunsford, his soldiers occupied in burning towns, and massacring women and children. The model of the gay cavalier of the earlier period of this great revolution, before the war had broken out in its intensity, was the courtly Sir John Suckling, the poet of the drawing-room and tavern, the admired of “roaring boys,” and the hated of rigid Puritans. Sir John outdid his companions in extravagance in everything which was fashionable, and the display of his zeal in the cause of royalty was not calculated to conciliate the reformers.When the king led an army against the Scottish Covenanters in 1639, Suckling raised a troop of a hundred horse at his own expense; but they gained more reputation by their extraordinary dress than by their courage, and the whole affair was made a subject of ridicule. From this time the name of Suckling became identified with that gay and profligate class who, disgusted by the outward show of sanctity which the Puritans affected, rushed into the other extreme, and became notorious for their profaneness, their libertinism, and their indulgence in vice, which threw a certain degree of discredit upon the royalist party. There is a large broadside among the King’s Pamphlets in the British Museum, entitled, “The Sucklington Faction; or (Sucklings) Roaring Boys.” It is one of those satirical compositions which were then fashionable under the title of “Characters,” and is illustrated by an engraving, from which our cut No. 179 is copied. This engraving, which from its superior style is perhaps the work of a foreign artist, represents the interior of a chamber, in which two of the Roaring Boys are engaged in drinking and smoking, and forms a curious picture of contemporary manners. Underneath the engraving we read the following lines:—

Much meate doth gluttony produce,And makes a man a swine;But hee’s a temperate man indeedThat with a leafe can dine.Hee needes no napkin for his handes,His fingers for to wipe;He hath his kitchin in a box,His roast meate in a pipe.

Much meate doth gluttony produce,And makes a man a swine;But hee’s a temperate man indeedThat with a leafe can dine.

Much meate doth gluttony produce,

And makes a man a swine;

But hee’s a temperate man indeed

That with a leafe can dine.

Hee needes no napkin for his handes,His fingers for to wipe;He hath his kitchin in a box,His roast meate in a pipe.

Hee needes no napkin for his handes,

His fingers for to wipe;

He hath his kitchin in a box,

His roast meate in a pipe.

When the war spread itself over the country, many of these Roaring Boys became soldiers, and disgraced the profession by rapacity and cruelty. The pamphlets of the parliamentarians abound with complaints of the outrages perpetrated by the Cavaliers, and the evil appears to have been increased by the ill-conduct of the auxiliaries brought over from Ireland to serve the king, who were especially objects of hatred to the Puritans. A broadside among the king’s pamphlets is adorned by a satirical picture of “The English Irish Souldier, with his new discipline, new armes, oldstomacke, and new taken pillage; who had rather eat than fight.” It was published in 1642. The English Irish soldier is, as may be supposed, heavily laden with plunder. In 1646 appeared another caricature, which is copied in our cut No. 180. It represents “England’s Wolfe with Eagles clawes: the cruell impieties of bloud-thirsty royalists and blasphemous anti-parliamentarians, under the command of that inhumane prince Rupert, Digby, and the rest, wherein the barbarous crueltie of our civill uncivill warres is briefly discovered.” England’s wolf, as will be seen, is dressed in the high fashion of the gay courtiers of the time.

No. 180. “England’s Wolf.”

A few large caricatures, embodying satire of a more comprehensive description, appeared from time to time, during this troubled age. Such is a large emblematical picture, published on the 9th of November, 1642,and entitled “Heraclitus’ Dream,” for the scene is supposed to be manifested to the philosopher in a vision. In the middle of the picture the sheep are seen shearing their shepherd; while one cuts his hair, another treats his beard in the same manner. Under the picture we read the couplet—

The flocke that was wont to be shorne by the herd,Now polleth the shepherd in spight of his beard.

The flocke that was wont to be shorne by the herd,

Now polleth the shepherd in spight of his beard.

No. 181. Folly Uppermost.

On the 19th of January, 1647, a caricature appeared under the title “An Embleme of the Times.” On one side War, represented as a giant in armour, is seen standing upon a heap of dead and mutilated bodies, while Hypocrisy, in the form of a woman with two faces, is flying towards a distant city. “Libertines,” “anti-sabbatarians,” and others, are hastening in the same direction; and the angel of pestilence, hovering over the city, is ready to pounce upon it.

The party of the parliament was now triumphant, and the question of religion again became the subject of dispute. The Presbyterians had been establishing a sort of tyranny over men’s minds, and sought to proscribe all other sects, till their intolerance gradually raised up a strong andgeneral feeling of resistance. Since 1643 a brisk war of political pamphlets had been carried on between the Presbyterians and their opponents, when, in 1647, the Independents, whose cause had been espoused by the army, gained the mastery. “Sir John Presbyter” or to use the more familiar phrase, “Jack Presbyter,” furnished a subject for frequent satire, and the Presbyterians were not slow in returning the blow. In the collection in the British Museum we find a caricature which must have come from the Presbyterian party, entitled “Reall Persecution, or the Foundation of a general Toleration, displaied and portrayed by a proper emblem, and adorned with the same flowers wherewith the scoffers of this last age have strowed their libellous pamphlets.” The group which occupies the middle part of this broadside, is copied in our cut No. 181. It has its separate title, “The Picture of an English Persecutor, or a foole-ridden ante-Presbeterian sectary.” (I give the spelling as in the original.) Folly is riding on the sectarian, whom he holds with a bridle, the sectarian having the ears of an ass. The following homely rhymes are placed in the mouth of Folly,—

Behould my habit, like my witt,Equalls his on whom sitt.

Behould my habit, like my witt,

Equalls his on whom sitt.

Anti-Presbyterian is, as will be seen, dressed in the height of the fashion, and says—

My cursed speeches against PresbetryDeclares unto the world my foolery.

My cursed speeches against Presbetry

Declares unto the world my foolery.

The mortification of the Presbyterians led in Scotland to the proclamation of Charles II. as king, and to the ill-fated expedition which ended in the battle of Worcester in 1651, when satirical pamphlets, ballads, and caricatures against the Scottish Presbyterians became for a while very popular. One of the best of the latter is represented in our cut No. 182. Its object is to ridicule the conditions which the Presbyterians exacted from the young prince before they offered him the crown. It is printed in the middle of the broadside, in prose, published on the 14th of July, 1651, with the general title, “Old Sayings and Predictions verified and fulfilled, touching the young King of Scotland and his gude subjects.”The picture has its separate title, “The Scots holding their young kinges nose to the grinstone.” followed by the lines—

Come to the grinstone, Charles, ’tis now to lateTo recolect, ’tis presbiterian fate,You covinant pretenders, must I beeThe subject of youer tradgie-comedie?

Come to the grinstone, Charles, ’tis now to late

To recolect, ’tis presbiterian fate,

You covinant pretenders, must I bee

The subject of youer tradgie-comedie?

No. 182. Conditions of Royalty.

In fact, the picture represents Presbyterianism—Jack Presbyter—holding the young king’s nose to the grindstone, which is turned by the Scots, personified as Jockey. The following lines are put into the mouths of the three actors in this scene:—

Jockey.—I, Jockey, turne the stone of all your plots,For none turnes faster than the turne-coat Scots.Presbyter.—We for our ends did make thee king, be sure,Not to rule us, we will not that endure.King.—You deep dissemblers, I kow what you doe,And, for revenges sake, I will dissemble too.

Jockey.—I, Jockey, turne the stone of all your plots,

For none turnes faster than the turne-coat Scots.

Presbyter.—We for our ends did make thee king, be sure,

Not to rule us, we will not that endure.

King.—You deep dissemblers, I kow what you doe,

And, for revenges sake, I will dissemble too.

Charles’s defeat and flight from Worcester furnished materials for amuch more elaborate caricature than most of the similar productions of this period, and of a somewhat singular design. It was published on the 6th of November, 1651, and bears the title “A Mad Designe; or a Description of the king of Scots marching in his disguise, after the Rout at Worcester.” A long, and not unnecessary, explanation of the several groups forming this picture, enables us to understand it. On the left Charles is seated on the globe “in a melancholy posture.” A little to the right, and nearly in front, the bishop of Clogher is performing mass, at which lords Ormond and Inchquin, in the shapes of strange animals, hold torches, and the lord Taaf, in the form of a monkey, holds up the bishop’s train. The Scottish army is seen marching up, consisting, according to the description, of papists, prelatical malignants, Presbyterians, and old cavaliers; the latter of whom are represented by the “fooles head upon a pole in the rear.” The next group consists of two monkeys, one with a fiddle, the other carrying a long staff with a torch at the end, concerning which we learn that “The two ridiculous anticks, one with a fiddle, and the other with a torch, set forth the ridiculousness of their condition when they marched into England, carried up with high thoughts, yet altogether in the darke, having onely a fooles bawble to be their light to walke by, mirth of their own whimsies to keep up their spirits, and a sheathed sword to truste in.” Next come a troop of women, children, and papists, lamenting over their defeat. Two monkeys on foot, and one on horseback, follow, the latter riding with his face turned to the horse’s tail, and carrying in his hand a spit with provisions on it. It is explained as “The Scots Kings flight from Worcester, represented by the foole on horseback, riding backward, turning his face every way in feares, ushered by duke Hambleton and the lord Wilmot.” Lastly, a crowd of women with flags bring up the rear. It cannot be said that the wit displayed in this satire is of the very highest order.

No. 183. Arthur Haselrigg.

After this period we meet with comparatively few caricatures until the death of Cromwell, and the eve of the Restoration, when there came a new and fierce struggle of political parties. The Dutch were the subject of some satirical prints and pamphlets in 1652; and we find a small number of caricatures on the social evils, such as drunkenness and gluttony, and onone or two subjects of minor agitation. With the close of the Commonwealth a new form of caricature came in. Playing cards had, during this seventeenth century, been employed for various purposes which were quite alien to their original character. In France they were made the means of conveying instruction to children. In England, at the time of which we are speaking, they were adopted as the medium for spreading political caricature. The earliest of these packs of cards known is one which appears to have been published at the very moment of the restoration of Charles II., and which was, perhaps, engraved in Holland. It contains a series of caricatures on the principal acts of the Commonwealth, and on the parliamentary leaders. Among other cards of a similar character which have been preserved is a pack relating to the popish plot, anotherrelating to the Rye House conspiracy, one on the Mississippi scheme, published in Holland, and one on the South Sea bubble.

No. 184. General Lambert.

The earliest of these packs of satirical cards, that on the Commonwealth, belonged a few years ago to a lady of the name of Prest, and is very fully described in a paper by Mr. Pettigrew, printed in the “Journal of the British Archæological Association.” Each of the fifty-two cards presents a picture with a satirical title. Thus the ace of diamonds represents “The High Court of Justice, or Oliver’s Slaughter House.” The eight of diamonds is represented in our cut No. 183; its subject is “Don Haselrigg, Knight of the Codled Braine.” It is hardly necesiary to say that Sir Arthur Haselrigg acted a very prominent and remarkable part during the whole of the Commonwealth period, and that his mannerswere impetuous and authoritative, which was probably the meaning of the epithet here given to him. The card of the king of diamonds represents rather unequivocally the subject indicated by its title, “Sir H. Mildmay solicits a citizen’s wife, for which his owne corrects him.” It is an allusion to one of the petty scandals of the republican period. The eight of hearts is a satire on major-general Lambert. This able and distinguished man was remarkably fond of flowers, took great pleasure in cultivating them, and was skilful in drawing them, which was one of his favourite amusements. He withdrew to Amsterdam during the Protectorate, and there gave full indulgence to this love of flowers, and I need hardly say that it was the age of the great tulip mania in Holland. When, after the Restoration, he was involved in the fate of the regicides, but had his sentence commuted for thirty years of imprisonment, he alleviated the dulness of his long confinement in the isle of Guernsey by the same amusement. In the card we have engraved, Lambert is represented in his garden, holding a large tulip in his hand; and it is no doubt in allusion to this innocent taste that he is here entitled “Lambert, Knight of the Golden Tulip.”

No. 185. Shrovetide.

The Restoration furnished better songs than prints, and many years passed before any caricatures worthy of notice appeared in England. Even burlesque subjects of any merit occur but rarely, and I hardly know of one which is worth describing here. Among the best of those I have met with, is a pair of plates, published in 1660, representing Lent and Shrovetide, and these, I believe, are copied or imitated from foreign prints. Lent is come as a thin miserable-looking knight-errant, appropriately armed and mounted, ready to give battle to Shrovetide, whose good living is pernicious to the whole community, and he abuses his opponent in good round terms. In the companion print, of which our cut No. 185 is a copy, Shrovetide appears as a jolly champion, quite ready to meet his enemy. He is best described in the following lines, extracted from the verses which accompany the prints:—

Fatt Shrovetyde, mounted on a good fatt oxe,Supposd that Lent was mad, or caught a foxe,[99]Armed cap-a-pea from head unto the heel,A spit his long sword, somewhat worse than steale,(Sheath’d in a fatt pigge and a peece of porke),His bottles fild with wine, well stopt with corke;The two plump capons fluttering at his crupper;And ’s shoulders lac’d with sawsages for supper;The gridir’n (like a well strung instrument)Hung at his backe, and for the turnamentHis helmet is a brasse pott, and his flaggeA cookes foule apron, which the wind doth wagg,Fixd to a broome: thus bravely he did ride,And boldly to his foe he thus replied.

Fatt Shrovetyde, mounted on a good fatt oxe,

Supposd that Lent was mad, or caught a foxe,[99]

Armed cap-a-pea from head unto the heel,

A spit his long sword, somewhat worse than steale,

(Sheath’d in a fatt pigge and a peece of porke),

His bottles fild with wine, well stopt with corke;

The two plump capons fluttering at his crupper;

And ’s shoulders lac’d with sawsages for supper;

The gridir’n (like a well strung instrument)

Hung at his backe, and for the turnament

His helmet is a brasse pott, and his flagge

A cookes foule apron, which the wind doth wagg,

Fixd to a broome: thus bravely he did ride,

And boldly to his foe he thus replied.

ENGLISH COMEDY.—BEN JONSON.—THE OTHER WRITERS OF HIS SCHOOL.—INTERRUPTION OF DRAMATIC PERFORMANCES.—COMEDY AFTER THE RESTORATION.—THE HOWARDS BROTHERS; THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM; THE REHEARSAL.—WRITERS OF COMEDY IN THE LATTER PART OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.—INDECENCY OF THE STAGE.—COLLEY CIBBER.—FOOTE.

In England, as in Athens of old, perfect comedy arose gradually out of the personalities of the rude dramatic attempts of an earlier period. Such productions as Ralph Roister Doister and Gammer Gurton’s Needle were mere imperfect attempts at, we may perhaps rather say feelers towards, comedy itself—that drama, the object of which was to caricature, and thus to dissect and apply correctives to, the vices and weaknesses of contemporary society. The genius of Shakespeare was far too exquisitely poetical to qualify him for a task like this; it wanted some one who could use the lancet and scalpel skilfully, but soberly, and who was not liable to be led astray by too much vigour of imagination.

Such a one was Ben Jonson, whom we may rightly consider as the father of English comedy. “Bartholomew Fair,” first performed at the Hope Theatre, on Bankside, London, on the 31st of October, 1614, is the most perfect and most remarkable example of the truly English comedy, remarkable, among many other things, for the extraordinary number of characters who were brought upon the stage in one piece, and who are all at the same time grouped and individualised with a skill that reminds us of the pictorial triumphs of a Callot or a Hogarth. London life is placed before us in all its more popular forms in one grand tableau, the one in which it would show itself in its more grotesque attitudes; the London citizen, his vain or easy wife, sharpers of every description, and their victims no less varied in character, the petty city officers, all comein for their share of satire. The different groups are distributed so naturally, that it is difficult to say who is the principal character of the piece—and who ever was the principal character in Bartholomew Fair? Perhaps the character of Cokes, the young booby squire from Harrow—for in those times even so near London as Harrow, a young squire was considered to be in all probability but a young country booby—strikes us most. It is said to have been at a later period the favourite character of Charles II. Among the other principal characters of the play are a proctor of the Arches Court named Littlewit, who imagines himself to be abel espritof the first order; his wife, and her mother, dame Purecraft, who is a widow; Justice Overdo, a London magistrate, to whose ward, Grace Wellborn, Cokes is affianced in marriage; a zealous Puritan, named Zeal-of-the-land Busy, who is a suitor to the widow Purecraft, herself also a Puritan; Winwife, Busy’s rival; and a gamester named Tom Quarlous, who figures as Winwife’s friend and companion. All these meet in town, on the morning of the fair, Cokes under the care of a sort of steward or upper servant, named Waspe, who was of a quarrelsome disposition, and separate in groups among the crowd which filled Smithfield and its vicinity, each having their separate adventures, but meeting from time to time, and reassembling at the end. Cokes behaves as a simpleton from the country, longs for everything, and wonders at everything, buys up toys and gingerbread, is separated from all his companions, robbed of his money and even of his outer garments, and in this condition finally settles down at a puppet-show. Meanwhile the Puritan Busy, by his zeal against the “heathen abominations” of the fair on one hand, and Waspe, by his quarrelsome temper on the other, fall into a series of scrapes, which end in both being carried to the stocks. They are there joined by another important personage. Justice Overdo, who is distinguished by an extraordinary zeal for the right administration of justice and the suppression of social vices of all kinds, has come into the fair in disguise, in order to make himself acquainted with its various abuses, and he passes among them unknown; and his inquisitive intermeddling brings him into a variety of mishaps, in the course of which he also is seized by the constable, and allows himself to be taken to the stocks, rather thanbetray his identity. Thus all three, Busy, Waspe, and Overdo, are placed in the stocks at the same time; but Waspe, by a clever trick, escapes, and leaves the Puritan and the justice confined together, the one looking upon himself as a martyr for religion’s sake, the other rather glorying in suffering through his disinterested zeal for the common good. They, too, after a while make their escape through an accidental oversight of their keepers, and mix again with the mob. The women, likewise, have been separated from their male companions, have fallen among sharpers and bullies, been made drunk, and escaped but narrowly from still worse disasters. They all finally meet before the puppet-show, which has fixed the attention of Cokes, and there justice Overdo discovers himself. Such are the materials of Ben Jonson’s “Bartholomew Fair,” the busiest and most amusing of plays. It is said, when first acted, to have given great satisfaction to king James, by the ridicule thrown upon the Puritans, and it continued to be a favourite comedy when revived after the Restoration.

“The Alchemist,” by the same author, preceded “Bartholomew Fair,” by four years, and was designed as a satire upon a class of impostors who, in that age, were among the greatest pests of society, and were instruments, one way or other, in the greatest crimes of the day. “The Alchemist” belongs, also, to the pure English comedy, but its plot is more simple and distinct than that of “Bartholomew Fair.” It involves events which may have occurred frequently, at periods when the metropolis was from time to time exposed to the vicissitudes of the plague. On one of these occasions, Lovewit, a London gentleman, obliged to quit the metropolis in order to avoid the plague, leaves his town house to the charge of one man-servant, Face, who proves dishonest, associates himself with a rogue named Subtle, and an immoral woman named Dol Common, and introduces them into the house, which is made the basis for their subsequent operations. Subtle assumes the character of a magician and alchemist, while Dol acts various female parts, and Face goes about alluring people into their snares. Among their dupes are a knight who lives upon the town, two English Puritans from Amsterdam, a lawyer’s clerk, a tobacco man, a young country squire, and his sister dame Pliant, a widow. The various intrigues in which these individuals are involved, show us the way inwhich the pretended conjurers and alchemists contributed to all the vices of the town. At length their base dealings are on the point of being exposed by the cunning of one upon whom they had attempted to impose, when Truewit, the master of the house, returns unexpectedly, and all is discovered, but the alchemist and his female associate contrive to escape. The object of their last intrigue had been to entrap dame Pliant, who was rich, into a marriage with a needy sharper; and Lovewit, finding the lady in the house, and liking her, marries her himself, and, in consideration of the satisfaction he has thus procured, forgives his unfaithful servant. Many have considered the Alchemist to be the best of Jonson’s dramas. “Epicœne, or the Silent Woman,” which belongs to the year 1609, is another satirical picture of London society, in which the same class of characters appear. Morose, an eccentric gentleman of fortune, who has a great horror for noise, and even obliges his servants to communicate with him by signs, has a nephew, a young knight named Sir Dauphine Eugenie, with whom he is dissatisfied, and he refuses to allow him money for his support. A plot is laid by his friends, whereby the uncle is led into a marriage with a supposed silent woman, named Epicœne, but she only sustains the character until the wedding formalities are completed, and these are followed by a scene of noise and riot, which completely horrifies Morose, and leads to a reconciliation with his nephew, to whom he makes over half his fortune. The earliest of Ben Jonson’s comedies, “Every Man in his Humour,” was composed in its present form in 1598, and is the first of these dramatic satires on the manners and character of the citizens of London, of whom it was fashionable at the courts of James I. and Charles I. to speak contemptuously. Kno’well, an old gentleman of respectability, is highly displeased with his son Edward, because the latter has taken to writing poetry, and has formed a friendship with another gentleman of his own age, who loves poetry and frequents the rather gay society of the poets and wits of the town. Wellbred has a half-brother, a “plain squire,” named Downright, and a sister married to a rich city merchant named Kitely. Kitely, the merchant, who is extremely jealous of his wife, has a great desire to reform Wellbred, and draw him to a steadier line of life, a sentiment in which Downrightheartily joins. Kitely’s jealousy, and the steps taken to reform Wellbred, lead to the most comic parts of the play, which concludes with the marriage of young Kno’well to Kitely’s daughter, Miss Bridget, and his reconciliation with his father. Among the other characters in the piece are captain Bobadil, “a blustering coward,” justice Clement, “an old merry magistrate,” his clerk, Roger Formal, and a country gull and a town gull.

These comedies of London life became popular, and continued so during this and the following reign—in fact, the mass of those who attended the theatres could understand and appreciate them better than any others, and, what was more, they felt them. Among Jonson’s contemporaries in the literature of this English comedy were Middleton and Thomas Heywood, both very prolific writers, Chapman, and Marston. Certain classes of characters are continually repeated in this comedy, because they belonged especially to the London society of the time, but the employment and distribution of these characters admitted of great variations, and they perhaps often had at the time a special interest, as representing known individuals, or as being combined in a plot which was built upon real incidents in London life. Among these were usually a country gentleman of fortune, who was very avaricious, and had a spendthrift son, or who had a daughter, a rich heiress, who was the object of the intrigues of spendthrift suitors; young heirs, who have just come to their estates, and are spending them in London; young country squires who are easy victims; a needy knight, as poor in principles as in money, who lived upon the public in every way he could; designing and unscrupulous women; bullies and sharpers of every description. In fact, we seem to be always in the smell of the tavern, and in the midst of dissipation. Then there are fat, sleek, and wealthy citizens, whole souls are entirely wrapt up in their merchandise, who are proud, nevertheless, of their position; and easy, credulous city wives, who are fond of finery and of praise, eager for gaiety and display, impatient of the rule of husbands, or of the dulness of home, and very ready to listen to the advances of the gay gallants from the court end of the town, or from the tavern. The city tradesman has generally an apprentice or two, sometimes very soberbut perhaps more frequently dissipated, who play their parts in the piece; and often a daughter, who is either a model of modesty and all the domestic virtues, and is finally the reward of some hero of good principles, who has been temporarily led astray, and his character misinterpreted, or who is gay and intriguing, and comes to disgrace. But the favourite idea of excellence, or, to use a technical phrase, thebeau idealof this comedy, appears to have been a wild youth, who goes through every scene of dissipation, in a gentlemanly manner (as the term was then understood), and comes out at the end of the play as an honest, virtuous man, and receives the reward for qualities which he had not previously displayed.

Sometimes the writers of this comedy indulged in personal, or even in political, allusions which brought them into trouble. In the year 1605, Ben Jonson, George Chapman, and John Marston, wrote jointly a comedy entitled “Eastward Hoe.” It is a very excellent and amusing comedy, and was very popular. Touchstone, an honest goldsmith in the city, has two apprentices, Golding, a sober and industrious youth, and Quicksilver, who is an irreclaimable rake. Touchstone has also two daughters, the eldest of whom, Gertrude, affects the fine lady, and is ambitious of finding a husband in the fashionable world, while her younger sister, Mildred, is all virtue and humility. An attachment arises between Golding and Mildred. Another character in this drama is a needy, scheming knight, who lives upon the town, and rejoices in the name of Sir Petronel Flash. Sir Petronel is attracted by the rich dowry which the young lady, Gertrude, had to expect, pays his court to her, and easily works upon her vanity; and, her mother encouraging her, they are hastily married, contrary to the wishes of her father. The knight is supposed to possess a magnificent castle somewhere to the east of London, and the young bride and her mother proceed in search of this, from which the comedy derives its title of “Eastward Hoe,” but they are involved in various disagreeable adventures in the search, which ends in the conviction that it is all a fable. Another character in the play is a greedy and unprincipled usurer, who is so jealous of his young and pretty wife, that he keeps her under lock and key; and this man is deeply involved in money-lending with Sir Petronel Flash, and they are engaged in a series of unprincipledtransactions, which lead to the disgrace of them all, and in the course of which the virtue of the usurer’s wife falls a sacrifice. Meanwhile the fortunes of the two apprentices have been advancing in directly opposite directions. Quicksilver, the unworthy apprentice, leaves his master, proceeds from bad to worse, and finally is committed to prison, for a crime the punishment of which was death. On the other hand, Golding has not only gained his master’s esteem and married his daughter Mildred, and been adopted as the heir to his wealth, but he has merited the respect of his fellow-citizens, and has been promoted in municipal rank. It becomes Golding’s duty to preside over the trial of his old fellow apprentice Quicksilver, but the latter escapes through Golding’s generosity.

There is some sound morality in the spirit of this comedy, and a very large amount of immorality in the text. There was, indeed, a coarse licence in the relations of society at this period, which are but too faithfully represented in its literature. But there are two circumstances, accidentally attached to this drama, which give it a peculiar interest. When brought out upon the stage it contained reflections upon Scotchmen which provoked the anger of king James I. to such a degree, that all the authors were seized and thrown into prison, and narrowly escaped the loss of their ears and noses, but they obtained their release with some difficulty, and only through powerful intercession. In the copy which has been brought down to us through the press, we find no reflections whatever upon Scotchmen, so that it must have been altered from the original text. When we consider that, at this time, the English court and capital were crowded with needy Scottish adventurers, who were looked upon with great jealousy, it is not improbable that in the original form of the comedy, Sir Petronel Flash may have been a Scotchman, and intended not only as a satire upon the Scottish adventurers in general, but to have been designed for some one in particular who had the means of bringing upon the authors the extreme displeasure of the court.

The other circumstance which has given celebrity to this comedy, is one of still greater interest. After the Restoration, it was new modelled by Nicholas Tate, and brought again upon the stage under the title of “Cuckold’s Haven.” Perhaps through this remodelled edition, Hogarthtook from the comedy of “Eastward Hoe,” the idea of his series of plates of the history of the Idle and Industrious Apprentices.

When we consider the ridicule which was continually thrown upon them in this earlier period of the English comedy, we can easily understand the bitterness with which the Puritans regarded the stage and the drama. When they obtained power, the stage, as might be expected, was suppressed, and for some years England was without a theatre. At the Restoration, however, the theatres were opened again, and with greater freedom than ever. At first the old comedies of the days of James I. and Charles I. were revived, and many of them, modified and adapted to the new circumstances, were again brought upon the stage. The original comedies which appeared immediately after the Restoration, were often marked with a political tinge; as the stage saw its natural protectors in the court, and in the court party, it embraced their politics; and Puritans, Roundheads, Whigs, all whose principles were supposed to be contrary to royalty and arbitrary power, fell under its satire. Such was the character of the comedy of “The Cheats,” by a play-writer of some repute named Wilson, which was brought out in 1662. The object of this play appears to have been, in the first place, to satirise the Nonconformists or Puritanical clergy—with whom were classed the astrologers and conjurers, who had increased in number during the Commonwealth time, and infested society more than ever—and the city magistrates, who were not looked upon as being generally over-loyal. The three cheats who are the heroes of this comedy, are Scruple, the Nonconformist, Mopus, a pretender to physic and astrology, and alderman Whitebroth. Direct personal attacks had been introduced into the comedy of the Restoration, and it is probable that somebody of influence was satirised under the name of Scruple, for the play was suppressed by authority, and at a later period, when it was revived, the prologue announces this fact in the following words:—

Sad news, my masters; and too true, I fear,For us—Scruple’s a silenc’d minister.Would ye the cause? The brethren snivel, and say,’Tis scandalous that any cheat but they.

Sad news, my masters; and too true, I fear,

For us—Scruple’s a silenc’d minister.

Would ye the cause? The brethren snivel, and say,

’Tis scandalous that any cheat but they.

Many of the dramatists of the Restoration were men of good andaristocratic families, witty and profligate cavaliers, who had returned from exile with their king. The family of the earl of Berkshire produced no less than four writers of comedy, all brothers, Edward Howard, colonel Henry Howard, sir Robert Howard, and James Howard, while their sister, the lady Elizabeth Howard, was married to the poet Dryden. Edward Howard’s first dramatic piece was a tragi-comedy entitled “The Usurper,” which came out in 1668, and was intended as a satire upon Cromwell. His best known comedies were “The Man of Newmarket,” and “Woman’s Conquest.” Colonel Henry Howard composed a comedy entitled “United Kingdoms,” which appears not to have been printed. To James Howard, the youngest of the brothers, the play-going public, even then rather a large one, owed “The English Mounsieur,” and “All Mistaken, or the Mad Couple.” Sir Robert Howard was the best writer of the four, and wrote both tragedies and comedies, which were afterwards published collectively. The best of his comedies is “The Committee,” which was first brought on the stage in 1665, and through some chance, certainly not by its merit, continued to be an acting play during the whole of the last century.

“The Committee” is by far the best of the dramatic writings of the Howards. Its design was to turn to ridicule the Commonwealth men and the Puritans. Colonel Blunt and colonel Careless are two royalists, whose estates are in the hands of the committee of sequestrations, and who repair to London for the purpose of compounding for them. The chairman of the committee is a Mr. Day, a worldly-minded and sufficiently selfish Puritan, but who is ruled by his more crafty and still less scrupulous wife, a designing and very talkative woman. Both are of low origin, for Mrs. Day had been a kitchen-woman, and both are very proud and very tyrannical. Among the other principal characters are Abel Day, their son, Obadiah, the clerk to the committee, a man in the interest of the Days, and an Irish servant named Teague, who had been the servant of Careless’s dear friend, a royalist officer killed in battle, and whom the colonel finds in great distress, and takes into his own service out of charity. The character of Teague is a very poor caricature upon an Irishman, and his blunders and bulls are of a very spiritless description. Here is an example.Teague has overheard the two colonels state that they should be obliged to take the Covenant, and express their reluctance to do it, and in his inconsiderate zeal, he hurries away to try if he cannot take the covenant for them, and thus save them a disagreeable operation. In the street he meets a wandering bookseller—a class of pedlars who were then common—and a scene takes place which is best given in the words of the original:—

Bookseller.—New books, new books! A Desperate Plot and Engagement of the Bloody Cavaliers! Mr. Saltmarshe’s Alarum to the Nation, after having been three days dead! Mercurius Britannicus—Teague.—How’s that? They cannot live in Ireland after they are dead three days!Book.—Mercurius Britannicus, or the Weekly Post, or the Solemn League and Covenant!Teag.—What is that you say? Is it the Covenant you have?Book.—Yes; what then, sir?Teag.—Which is that Covenant?Book.—Why, this is the Covenant.Teag.—Well, I must take that Covenant.Book.—You take my commodities?Teag.—I must take that Covenant, upon my soul, now.Book.—Stand off, sir, or I’ll set you further!Teag.—Well, upon my soul, now, I will take the Covenant for my master.Book.—Your master must pay me for’t, then!Teag.—I must take it first, and my master will pay you afterwards.Book.—You must pay me now.Teag.—Oh! that I will [Knocks him down]. Now you’re paid, you thief of the world. Here’s Covenants enough to poison the whole nation.[Exit.Book.—What a devil ails this fellow? [Crying]. He did not come to rob me, certainly; for he has not taken above two-pennyworth of lamentable ware away; but I feel the rascal’s fingers. I may light upon my wild Irishman again, and, if I do, I will fix him with some catchpole, that shall be worse than his own country bogs.[Exit.

Bookseller.—New books, new books! A Desperate Plot and Engagement of the Bloody Cavaliers! Mr. Saltmarshe’s Alarum to the Nation, after having been three days dead! Mercurius Britannicus—

Teague.—How’s that? They cannot live in Ireland after they are dead three days!

Book.—Mercurius Britannicus, or the Weekly Post, or the Solemn League and Covenant!

Teag.—What is that you say? Is it the Covenant you have?

Book.—Yes; what then, sir?

Teag.—Which is that Covenant?

Book.—Why, this is the Covenant.

Teag.—Well, I must take that Covenant.

Book.—You take my commodities?

Teag.—I must take that Covenant, upon my soul, now.

Book.—Stand off, sir, or I’ll set you further!

Teag.—Well, upon my soul, now, I will take the Covenant for my master.

Book.—Your master must pay me for’t, then!

Teag.—I must take it first, and my master will pay you afterwards.

Book.—You must pay me now.

Teag.—Oh! that I will [Knocks him down]. Now you’re paid, you thief of the world. Here’s Covenants enough to poison the whole nation.

[Exit.

Book.—What a devil ails this fellow? [Crying]. He did not come to rob me, certainly; for he has not taken above two-pennyworth of lamentable ware away; but I feel the rascal’s fingers. I may light upon my wild Irishman again, and, if I do, I will fix him with some catchpole, that shall be worse than his own country bogs.

[Exit.

In the sequel, Teague is caught by the constables, and is liberated at the interference of his master, who pays twopence for the book. The plot of the comedy is but a simple one, and is neither skilfully nor naturally carried out. Colonel Blunt comes to London from Reading in theinside of a stage-coach, having for his travelling companions Mrs. Day, her supposed daughter Ruth, and Arabella, a young lady whose father is recently dead, leaving his estates in the hands of the committee of sequestrations. Ruth is, in truth, a young lady whose estates the Days have, under similar circumstances, robbed her of, and it is their design to treat Arabella in the same manner, under disguise of forcing her to marry their son Abel, a vain silly lad. To effect this, as the committee itself requires some influencing to engage them in the selfish plans of their chairman, Day and his wife forge a letter from the exiled king, complimenting the former on his great power and influence and talents as a statesman, and offering him great rewards if he will secretly promote his cause. Day communicates this to the committee under the pretext that it is his duty to make them acquainted with all such perfidious designs that might come to his knowledge, and they, convinced of his honesty and value to them, give up Arabella’s estates to the Days, and she falls entirely under their power. Meanwhile, on the one hand, Arabella has gained the confidence of Ruth, who makes her acquainted with the whole plot against her and her estates, and on the other, Ruth falls in love with colonel Careless, and colonel Blunt is smitten with the charms of Arabella, and all this takes place in the committee room. Various incidents follow, which seem not very much to the purpose, but at last, as the marriage of Arabella to Abel Day is pressed forward, the two young ladies, although as yet they have hardly had an interview with the colonels, resolve to make their escape from the house of the chairman of the committee, and fly to their lovers for protection. A short absence from the house of Mr. and Mrs. Day and their son together, presents the desired opportunity, and Day having accidentally left his keys behind him, the idea suggests itself to Ruth to open his cabinet, and gain possession of the deeds and papers of her own estates and those of Arabella. As she had before this secretly observed the private drawer in which they were placed, she met with no difficulty in effecting her purpose, and not only found these documents, but also with them the forged letter from the king, and some letters addressed to Day by young women whom he was secretly keeping, and who demanded money for the support of children they had by him, andalluded to matters of a still more serious character. Ruth takes possession of all these, and thus laden, the two damsels hurry away, and reach without interruption the house where they were to meet the colonels. The Days return home immediately after the departure of their wards, and at once suspect the real state of affairs, which is fully confirmed, when Mr. Day finds that his most private drawer has been opened, and his most important papers carried off. They immediately proceed in search of the fugitives, having sent orders for a detachment of soldiers to assist them, and the house in which the lovers have taken refuge is surrounded before they have had time to escape. Finding it useless to attempt resistance by force, the besieged call for a parley, and then Ruth frightens Day by acquainting him with the contents of the private letters she has become possessed of, and his wife by the knowledge she has obtained of the forged letter, which also she has in her possession. The Days are thus overreached, and the play ends with a general reconciliation. The ladies are left with the titles of their estates, and with their lovers, and we are left to suppose that they afterwards married, and were happy.

The plot of “The Committee,” it will be seen, is not a very capital one, but the manner in which it is worked out is still worse. The dialogue is extremely tame, and the incidents are badly interwoven. When I say that the example of wit given above is the best in the play, and that there are not many attempts at wit in it, it will hardly be thought that it could be amusing, and we cannot but feel astonished at the popularity which it once enjoyed. This popularity, indeed, is only explained by the fashion of ridiculing the Puritans, which then prevailed so strongly; and it perhaps retained its place on the stage during the last century chiefly from the circumstance of its wanting the objectionable qualities which characterised the written plays of the latter half of the seventeenth century.

“The Committee” is, after all, one of the very best comedies of the school of dramatists represented by the brothers Howard. Contemporary with this school of flat comedies, there was a school of equally inflated tragedy, and both soon became objects of ridicule to the satirists of the day. Of these, one of the boldest was George Villiers, duke of Buckingham,the son of the favourite of king James I., and equally celebrated for his talents and his profligacy. Buckingham is said to have planned and begun his satirical comedy of “The Rehearsal” as early as the year 1663, and to have had it ready for representation towards the December of 1665, when the breaking out of the great plague caused the theatres to be closed. After this interruption its author, who was a desultory writer, appears to have laid it aside for some time and then, new objects for satire having presented themselves, he altered and modified it, and it was finally completed in 1671, when it was brought out at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden. It is said that Buckingham was assisted in the composition of this satire, but it is not stated in what manner, by Butler, and by Martin Clifford, of the Charter-house. It is understood that, in the first form of his satire, Buckingham had chosen the Hon. Edward Howard for its hero, and that he afterwards exchanged him for Sir William Davenant, but he finally fixed upon Dryden, whose tragedies and comedies are certainly not the best of his writings—possibly some personal pique may have had an influence in the selection. Nevertheless, with Dryden, the Howards, Davenant, and one or two other writers of comedy, come in for their share of ridicule. Dryden, under the name of Bayes, has composed a new drama, and a friend named Johnson goes to witness the rehearsal of this play, taking with him a country friend of the name of Smith. The play itself is a piece of mockery throughout, made up of parodies, often very happy, on the different play-writers of the day, and especially upon Dryden; and it is mixed up with a running conversation between Bayes, the author, and his two visitors, which is full of satirical humour. The first part of the prologue explains to us sufficiently the spirit in which this satire was written.

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