Of the performers mentioned in this curious theatrical gossip, one of them, Hart, had been a captain in the civil wars; another, Mohun, a major; and there was a third a quarter-master; all on the royal side. Hart and Mohun were old actors, when Betterton was young; and they lived to see him reckoned superior to either. The two were accustomed to act together, Hart generally in the superior character, as Brutus to the other's Cassius; and both, like Betterton, acted in comedy as well as tragedy. They performed, for instance, Manly and Horner in 'The Country Wife,' and there appears to have been less distinction in their styles of acting than is customary. If Hart shone in the Dorimant of 'Sir Fopling Flutter,' Mohun was highly applauded in Davenant's Valentine, in 'Wit without Money.' Mohun, however, appears to have excelled in the more ferocious parts of tragedy, as Catiline; and Hart in the mixture of gaity with boldness, as in Hotspur and Alexander. His Alexander was particularly famous. Upon the whole, we should conclude, Mohun's to have the more artificial acting of the two, more like "the actor," in Partridge's sense of the word, but very fine nevertheless, otherwise Rochester would hardly have admired him, as he is said to have done; unless, indeed, it was out of spite to some other actor; for he was much influenced by feelings of that kind. Perhaps, however, it was out of some chance predilection, The Duke of Buckingham is said to have preferred Ben Jonson to Shakspeare, for no other reason than his having been introduced to him when a boy. The best compliment ever known to have been paid to Hart, is an anecdote recorded of Betterton. Betterton acted Alexander after Hart's time; and "being at a loss," says Davies, "to recover a particular emphasis of that performer, which gave a force to some interesting situation of the part, he applied for information to the players who stood near him. At last,one of the lowest of the company repeated the line exactly in Hart's key. Betterton thanked him heartily, and put a piece of money into his hand, as a reward for so acceptable a service."[253]Hart had the reputation of being the first lover of Nell Gwyn, and one of the hundreds of the Duchess of Cleveland.
Goodman was another of the favoured many. He was one of the Alexanders of his time, but does not appear to have been a great actor. He was a dashing impudent fellow, who boasted of his having taken "an airing" on the road to recruit his purse. He was expelled from Cambridge for cutting and defacing the portrait of the Duke of Monmouth, Chancellor of the University, but not loyal enough to his father to please Goodman. James II. pardoned the loyal highwayman, which Goodman (in Cibber's hearing) said "was doing him so particular an honour, that no man could wonder if his acknowledgement had carried him a little further than ordinary into the interest of that prince. But as he had lately been out of luck in backing his old master, he had now no way to get home the life he was out, upon his account, but by being under the same obligations to King William."[254]The meaning of this is understood to be, that Goodman offered to assassinate William, in consequence of his having had a pardon from James; but the plot not succeeding, he turned king's evidence against James, in order to secure a pardon from William. This "pretty fellow" was latterly so easy in his circumstances, owing, it is supposed, to the delicate Cleveland, that he used to say he would never act Alexander the Great, but when he was certain that "his duchess" would be in the boxes to see him.
The stage in that day was certainly not behind-hand with the court; and as it had less conventional respectability in the eyes of the world, its private character was never so low. But we must do justice and not confound even the disreputable. Poor Nell Gwynn, in a quarrel with one of the Marshalls, who reproached her with being the mistress of Lord Buckhurst, said she was mistress but of one man at a time, though she had been brought up in a bad house "to fill strong waters to the gentlemen;" whereas her rebuker,though a clergyman's daughter, was the mistress of three. This celebrated actress, who was as excellent in certain giddy parts of comedy as she was inferior in tragedy, was small of person, but very pretty, with a good-humoured face, and eyes that winked when she laughed. She is the ancestress of the ducal family of St. Albans, who are thought to have retained more of the look and complexion of Charles II. than any other of his descendants. Beauclerc, Johnson's friend, was like him; and the black complexion is still in vigour. The King recommended her to his brother with his last breath, begging him "not to let poor Nelly starve." Burnet says she was introduced to the King by Buckingham, to supplant the Duchess of Cleveland; but others tell us, he first noticed her in consequence of a hat of the circumference of a coach-wheel, in which Dryden made her deliver a prologue, as a set-off to an enormous hat of Pistol's at the other house, and which convulsed the spectators with laughter. If Nelly retained a habit of swearing, which was probably taught her when a child (and it is clear enough from Pepys that she did), the poets did not discourage her. One of her epilogues by Dryden began in the following startling manner. It is entitled "An Epilogue spoken by Mrs. Ellen, when she was to be carried off dead by the Bearers."
"Hold, are you mad, you damn'd confounded dog?I am to rise and speak the epilogue."
"Hold, are you mad, you damn'd confounded dog?I am to rise and speak the epilogue."
"Hold, are you mad, you damn'd confounded dog?I am to rise and speak the epilogue."
"Hold, are you mad, you damn'd confounded dog?
I am to rise and speak the epilogue."
The poet makes her say of herself, in the course of the lines, that she was "a harmless little devil," and that she was slatternly in her dress. Lely painted her with a lamb under her arm. Mr. Pegge discovered that Charles made her a lady of the chamber to his queen. Pennant seems to think this was only a title; but it is plain from Evelyn's Memoirs that she had apartments in Whitehall.[255]She died a few years after the King, at her house in Pall Mall. Nell was much libelled in her time, and among others by Sir GeorgeEtherege;[256]very likely out of some personal pique or rejection, for such revenges were quite compatible with the "loves" of that age.[257]But she was a general favourite, nevertheless, owing to a natural good-heartedness which no course of life could overcome. Burnet's character of her is well known. "Guin," says he, "the indiscreetest and wildest creature that ever was in a court, continued, to the end of that king's life, in great favour and was maintained at a vast expense. The Duke of Buckingham told me that when she was first brought to the King, she asked only five hundred pounds a year; and the King refused it. But when he told me this, about four years after, he said, she had got of the King above sixty thousand pounds. She acted all persons in so lively a manner, and was such a constant diversion to the King, that even a new mistress could not drive her away. But after all he never treated her with the decencies of a mistress."[258]Nell Gwynn is said to have suggested to her royal lover the building of Chelsea Hospital, and to have made him a present of the ground for it.
Upon the whole the dramatic taste during the greater part of Charles's reign was false and artificial, particularly in tragedy. Etherege produced one good comedy, the precursor of Wycherly and Congreve; but Dryden, the reigning favourite, was not as great in dramatic as he was in other writing; his heroic plays, and Lee's "Alexander," were admired, not so much for the beauties mixed with their absurdity, as for the improbable air they gave to a serious passion; and the favourite plays of deceased authors were those of the most equivocal writers of the time of James, not the pure and profound nature of Shakspeare and his fellows. Otway flourished, but was not thought so great as he is now; and even in Otway there is a hot bullying smack of the tavern, very different from the voluptuousness in Shakspeare. Towards the close of this reign comedy came to its height with Wycherly, who, almost as profligate in point of dialogue as any of his contemporaries, nevertheless hit the right vein of satire. Wycherly lived at the other end of Russell Street, in Bow Street, where we shall see him shortly.
We are now come to the time of Congreve, Mrs. Bracegirdle, and others; Betterton remaining. Of these individually we have spoken before; and therefore shall only observe that by the more serious examples of James II. and King William, the manners of the day were reforming, and those of the stage with them. We now find ourselves among audiences more composed, and witness plays less coarse, though with an abundance of double meaning and exuberantly witty. Coquetry and fashion are now the reigning stage goddesses, as mere wantonness was that of the age preceding.
Farquhar and Vanbrugh succeeded, together with Cibber, Wilkes, Booth, and latterly Steele and Mrs. Oldfield. Vanbrugh does not belong to Drury Lane, but Farquhar does, with the rest; and a lively place he made of it. He isCaptainFarquhar, has a plume in his hat, and prodigious animal spirits, with invention at will, and great good nature. Captains abounded among the wits and adventurers of those days down to Captains Macheath and Gibbet. Vanbrugh was a captain; Steele at one time was Captain Steele; and Mrs. Oldfield's father, though the son of a vinter, became Captain Oldfield, and genteelly ran out an estate. This is still the age of genuine comedy, and the stage is worthy of it. The tragedy was proportionably bad. Booth, indeed, was a good tragic actor, but he suited the age in being declamatory. He was the hero of Addison's Cato, once the favourite tragedy of the critics, now of nobody.
Rowe was another artificial writer of tragedy, but not without a vein of feeling. It seems to have been thought in those times, as we may see by these authors, and by the tragedies of Banks and Lillo, that to be natural, an author was to be prosaical; while, if he had any pretensions to be poetical, it was his business to—
"—— wake the soul by tender strokes ofart."
"—— wake the soul by tender strokes ofart."
"—— wake the soul by tender strokes ofart."
"—— wake the soul by tender strokes ofart."
The gradual approach, also, of this period to our own times, which are more critical in costume, and the pictures left to us of favourite performers in Hamlet and Hermione, dressed in wigs and hoop petticoats, render those outrages upon propriety still stranger to one's imagination. They set tragedy in a mock-heroical light. Cato wore a long peruke; Alexander the Great a wig and jack-boots; and it was customary, down to Garrick's time, to dress Macbeth and other tragic general-officersin a suit of brick-dust. "Booth enters," says Pope:—
—— "Hark, the universal peal!But has he spoken? Not a syllable.What shook the stage and made the people stare?Cato's long wig, flowered gown, and lackered chair."
—— "Hark, the universal peal!But has he spoken? Not a syllable.What shook the stage and made the people stare?Cato's long wig, flowered gown, and lackered chair."
—— "Hark, the universal peal!But has he spoken? Not a syllable.What shook the stage and made the people stare?Cato's long wig, flowered gown, and lackered chair."
—— "Hark, the universal peal!
But has he spoken? Not a syllable.
What shook the stage and made the people stare?
Cato's long wig, flowered gown, and lackered chair."
The stare was not that of ridicule, but of admiration. All this makes the comedy of that period shine out the more as the only truth extant. Cherry, and Archer, and Sir Harry Wildair, and Sir John Brute, and my Lady Betty Modish, were like the age, and like the performers.
To return to these. Wilks was the fine gentleman of that period. He was a friend of Farquhar's, and came to London with him from Dublin. Cibber, though he wrote a good comedy, would appear, by some accounts of him, to have been little more on the stage than a mimic of past actors. Steele, however, has a criticism on him and Wilks, in which he speaks of them both as perfect actors in their kinds.
"Wilks," he tells us, "has a singular talent in representing the graces of nature; Cibber the deformity in the affectation of them. Were I a writer of plays, I should never employ either of them in parts which had not their bents this way. This is seen in the inimitable strain and run of good humour which is kept up in the character of Wildair, and in the nice and delicate abuse of understanding in that of Sir Novelty. Cibber, in another light, hits exquisitely theflatcivility of an affected gentleman usher, and Wilks the easy frankness of a gentleman.... To beseech gracefully, to approach respectfully, to pity, to mourn, to love, are the places wherein Wilks may be made to shine with the utmost beauty. To rally pleasantly, to scorn artfully, to flatter, to ridicule, and to neglect, are what Cibber would perform with no less excellence."[259]
"Wilks," he tells us, "has a singular talent in representing the graces of nature; Cibber the deformity in the affectation of them. Were I a writer of plays, I should never employ either of them in parts which had not their bents this way. This is seen in the inimitable strain and run of good humour which is kept up in the character of Wildair, and in the nice and delicate abuse of understanding in that of Sir Novelty. Cibber, in another light, hits exquisitely theflatcivility of an affected gentleman usher, and Wilks the easy frankness of a gentleman.... To beseech gracefully, to approach respectfully, to pity, to mourn, to love, are the places wherein Wilks may be made to shine with the utmost beauty. To rally pleasantly, to scorn artfully, to flatter, to ridicule, and to neglect, are what Cibber would perform with no less excellence."[259]
This criticism produced a letter to Steele from two inferior actors of that time, Bullock and Penkethman, who, rather than not be noticed at all, were willing to be bantered. They knew it would be done good-naturedly. Accordingly the "Tatler" says,
"For the information of posterity I shall comply with this letter, and set these two great men in such a light as Sallust has placed his Cato and Cæsar. Mr. William Bullock and Mr. William Penkethman are of the same age, profession, and sex. They both distinguish themselves in a very particular manner under the discipline of the crab tree, with this only difference, that Mr. Bullock has the more agreeable squall, and Mr. Penkethman the more graceful shrug. Penkethman devours cold chick with great applause; Bullock's talent lies chiefly in asparagus. Penkethman is very dexterous at conveying himselfunder a table; Bullock is no less active at jumping over a stick. Mr. Penkethman has a great deal of money; but Mr. Bullock is the taller man."[260]
"For the information of posterity I shall comply with this letter, and set these two great men in such a light as Sallust has placed his Cato and Cæsar. Mr. William Bullock and Mr. William Penkethman are of the same age, profession, and sex. They both distinguish themselves in a very particular manner under the discipline of the crab tree, with this only difference, that Mr. Bullock has the more agreeable squall, and Mr. Penkethman the more graceful shrug. Penkethman devours cold chick with great applause; Bullock's talent lies chiefly in asparagus. Penkethman is very dexterous at conveying himselfunder a table; Bullock is no less active at jumping over a stick. Mr. Penkethman has a great deal of money; but Mr. Bullock is the taller man."[260]
Off the stage, and behind the scenes, Cibber performed the part of a coxcomb of the first order. We shall not be properly acquainted with Drury Lane at this period if we do not repeat his story of the wig.
This was a peruke of his, famous in the part of Sir Fopling Flutter. It was so much admired, that Cibber used to have it brought upon the stage in a sedan, and put it on publicly, to the great content of the beholders. A set of curls so applauded was the next thing to a toast; and accordingly Colonel, then Mr. Brett, whom the toasts admired, could not rest till he had taken possession of it.
"The first view," says Colley, "that fires the head of a young gentleman of this modish ambition, just broke loose from business, is to cut a figure (as they call it) in a side box at the play, from whence their next step is to the green-room behind the scenes, sometimes theirnon ultra. Hither at last, then, in this hopeful quest of his fortune, came this gentleman-errant, not doubting but the fickle dame, while he was thus qualified to receive her, might be tempted to fall into his lap. And though, possibly, the charms of our theatrical nymphs might have their share in drawing him thither; yet, in my observation, the most visible cause of his first coming was a more sincere passion he had conceived for a fair full-bottomed periwig, which I then wore in my first play of the 'Fool in Fashion,' in the year 1695. For it is to be noted that thebeauxof those days were of a quite different cast to the modern stamp, and had more of the stateliness of the peacock in their mien, than (which now seems to be their highest emulation) the pert of a lapwing. Now, whatever contempt philosophers may have for a fine periwig, my friend, who was not to despise the world, but to live in it, knew very well, that so material an article of dress upon the head of a man of sense, if it became him, could never fail of drawing to him a more partial regard and benevolence than could possibly be hoped for in an ill-made one. This, perhaps, may soften the grave censure which so youthful a purchase might otherwise have laid upon him. In a word, he made his attack upon this periwig, as your young fellows generally do for a lady of pleasure; first, by a few familiar praises of her person, and then a civil inquiry into the price of it. But on his observing me a little surprised at the levity of his question about a fop's periwig, he began to rally himself with so much wit and humour upon the folly of his fondness for it, that he struck me with an equal desire of granting anything in my power to oblige so facetious a customer. This singular beginning of our conversation, and the mutual laughs that ensued upon it, ended in an agreement to finish our bargain that night over a bottle."[261]
"The first view," says Colley, "that fires the head of a young gentleman of this modish ambition, just broke loose from business, is to cut a figure (as they call it) in a side box at the play, from whence their next step is to the green-room behind the scenes, sometimes theirnon ultra. Hither at last, then, in this hopeful quest of his fortune, came this gentleman-errant, not doubting but the fickle dame, while he was thus qualified to receive her, might be tempted to fall into his lap. And though, possibly, the charms of our theatrical nymphs might have their share in drawing him thither; yet, in my observation, the most visible cause of his first coming was a more sincere passion he had conceived for a fair full-bottomed periwig, which I then wore in my first play of the 'Fool in Fashion,' in the year 1695. For it is to be noted that thebeauxof those days were of a quite different cast to the modern stamp, and had more of the stateliness of the peacock in their mien, than (which now seems to be their highest emulation) the pert of a lapwing. Now, whatever contempt philosophers may have for a fine periwig, my friend, who was not to despise the world, but to live in it, knew very well, that so material an article of dress upon the head of a man of sense, if it became him, could never fail of drawing to him a more partial regard and benevolence than could possibly be hoped for in an ill-made one. This, perhaps, may soften the grave censure which so youthful a purchase might otherwise have laid upon him. In a word, he made his attack upon this periwig, as your young fellows generally do for a lady of pleasure; first, by a few familiar praises of her person, and then a civil inquiry into the price of it. But on his observing me a little surprised at the levity of his question about a fop's periwig, he began to rally himself with so much wit and humour upon the folly of his fondness for it, that he struck me with an equal desire of granting anything in my power to oblige so facetious a customer. This singular beginning of our conversation, and the mutual laughs that ensued upon it, ended in an agreement to finish our bargain that night over a bottle."[261]
Colonel Brett, being a man of "bonnes fortunes," married Savage's mother!
Mrs. Oldfield made such an impression in her day, and has been noticed by so many writers, that she must have a passage to herself. She was the daughter of Captain Oldfield above-mentioned, and went to live with her aunt, who kept the Mitre tavern in St. James's Market. Here, we are told, Captain Farquhar, overhearing Miss Nancy read a play behind the bar, was so struck "with the proper emphasis and agreeable turn she gave to each character, that he swore the girl was cut out for the stage." As she had always expressed an inclination for that way of life, and a desire of trying her fortune in it, her mother, on this encouragement, the next time she saw Captain Vanbrugh (afterwards Sir John), who had a great respect for the family, acquainted him with Captain Farquhar's opinion, on which he desired to know whether her bent was most tragedy or comedy. Miss, being called in, informed him that her principal inclination was to the latter, having at that time gone through all Beaumont and Fletcher's comedies; and the play she was reading when Captain Farquhar dined there having been 'The Scornful Lady.' Captain Vanbrugh, shortly after, recommended her to Mr. Christopher Rich, who took her into the house at the allowance of fifteen shillings per week. However, her agreeable figure and sweetness of voice soon gave her the preference, in the opinion of the whole town, to all the young actresses of that time; and the Duke of Bedford, in particular, being pleased to speak to Mr. Rich in her favour, he instantly raised her to twenty shillings per week. After which her fame and salary gradually increased, till at length they both attained that height which her merit entitled her to.[262]
The new actress had a silver voice, a beautiful face and person, great good-nature, sprightliness, and grace, and became the fine lady of the stage in the most agreeable sense of the word. She also acted heroines of the sentimental order, and had an original part in every play of Steele. But she was particularly famous in the part of Lady Betty Modish, in "The Careless Husband." The name explains the character. Cibber tells us that he drew many of the strokes in it from her lively manner.
"Had her birth," he says, "placed her in a higher rank of life, she had certainly appeared in reality what in this play she only excellently acted, an agreeable gay woman of quality, a little too conscious of her natural attractions. I have often seen her in private societies, where women of the best rank might have borrowed some part of their behaviour, without the least diminution of their sense or dignity. And this very morning, where I am now writing, at the Bath, November 11th, 1738, the same words were said of her by a lady of condition, whose better judgment of her personal merit in that light has emboldened me to repeat them. After her success in this character of higher life, all that nature had given her of the actress seemed to have risen to its full perfection: but the variety of her power could not be known till she was seen in a variety of characters, which, as fast as they fell to her, she equally excelled in. Authors had much more from her performance than they had reason to hope for, from what they had written for her; and none had less than another, but as their genius, in the parts they allotted her, was more or less elevated."In the wearing of her person she was particularly fortunate; her figure was always improving to her thirty-sixth year; but her excellence in acting was never at a stand; and the last new character she shone in (Lady Townly) was a proof that she was still able to do more, if more could have been done forher. She had one mark of good sense, rarely known in any actor of either sex but herself. I have observed several, with promising dispositions, very desirous of instruction at their first setting out; but no sooner had they found their best account in it, than they were as desirous of being left to their own capacity, which they then thought would be disgraced by their seeming to want any farther assistance. But this was not Mrs. Oldfield's way of thinking; for to the last year of her life she never undertook any part she liked, without being importunately desirous of having all the helps in it that another could possibly give her. By knowing so much herself, she found how much more there was of nature yet needful to be known."Yet it was a hard matter to give her any hint, that she was not able to take or improve. With all this merit, she was tractable, and less presuming in her station than several that had not half her pretensions to be troublesome. But she lost nothing by her easy conduct; she had everything she asked, which she took care should be always reasonable, because she hated as much to be grudged as denied a civility. Upon her extraordinary action in the 'Provoked Husband,' the managers made her a present of fifty guineas more than her agreement, which never was more than a verbal one; for they knew she was above deserting them to engage upon any other stage, and she was conscious they would never think it their interest to give her cause of complaint. In the last two months of her illness, when she was no longer able to assist them, she declined receiving her salary, though by her agreement she was entitled to it. Upon the whole she was, to the last scene she acted, the delight of her spectators."[263]
"Had her birth," he says, "placed her in a higher rank of life, she had certainly appeared in reality what in this play she only excellently acted, an agreeable gay woman of quality, a little too conscious of her natural attractions. I have often seen her in private societies, where women of the best rank might have borrowed some part of their behaviour, without the least diminution of their sense or dignity. And this very morning, where I am now writing, at the Bath, November 11th, 1738, the same words were said of her by a lady of condition, whose better judgment of her personal merit in that light has emboldened me to repeat them. After her success in this character of higher life, all that nature had given her of the actress seemed to have risen to its full perfection: but the variety of her power could not be known till she was seen in a variety of characters, which, as fast as they fell to her, she equally excelled in. Authors had much more from her performance than they had reason to hope for, from what they had written for her; and none had less than another, but as their genius, in the parts they allotted her, was more or less elevated.
"In the wearing of her person she was particularly fortunate; her figure was always improving to her thirty-sixth year; but her excellence in acting was never at a stand; and the last new character she shone in (Lady Townly) was a proof that she was still able to do more, if more could have been done forher. She had one mark of good sense, rarely known in any actor of either sex but herself. I have observed several, with promising dispositions, very desirous of instruction at their first setting out; but no sooner had they found their best account in it, than they were as desirous of being left to their own capacity, which they then thought would be disgraced by their seeming to want any farther assistance. But this was not Mrs. Oldfield's way of thinking; for to the last year of her life she never undertook any part she liked, without being importunately desirous of having all the helps in it that another could possibly give her. By knowing so much herself, she found how much more there was of nature yet needful to be known.
"Yet it was a hard matter to give her any hint, that she was not able to take or improve. With all this merit, she was tractable, and less presuming in her station than several that had not half her pretensions to be troublesome. But she lost nothing by her easy conduct; she had everything she asked, which she took care should be always reasonable, because she hated as much to be grudged as denied a civility. Upon her extraordinary action in the 'Provoked Husband,' the managers made her a present of fifty guineas more than her agreement, which never was more than a verbal one; for they knew she was above deserting them to engage upon any other stage, and she was conscious they would never think it their interest to give her cause of complaint. In the last two months of her illness, when she was no longer able to assist them, she declined receiving her salary, though by her agreement she was entitled to it. Upon the whole she was, to the last scene she acted, the delight of her spectators."[263]
This charming actress (Mrs. Oldfield) is said to have been the Flavia of "The Tatler" (No. 212). The catch-pennywriter of her memoirs equivocally speaks of it as her "vera effigies," and on his authority the assertion has been repeated. But as a Flavia mentioned in the same work (No. 239) turns out to be Miss Osborne, afterwards the wife of Bishop Atterbury (upon whom he wrote the lines on a fan there inserted, beginning
"Flavia the least and slightest toyCan with resistless art employ,")
"Flavia the least and slightest toyCan with resistless art employ,")
"Flavia the least and slightest toyCan with resistless art employ,")
"Flavia the least and slightest toy
Can with resistless art employ,")
and as the first Flavia is praised for her quality and the extreme simplicity of her manners (which, according to Cibber, was not exactly one of the charms of Mrs. Oldfield,) the supposition, we think, falls to the ground. We need have less hesitation in admitting that Steele, who knew her well, alludes to her in another paper under her favourite title of Lady Betty Modish. Speaking of the effects of love upon a generous temper, in refining the manners, he says, "There is Colonel Ranter, who never spoke without an oath until he saw the Lady Betty Modish, now never gives his man an order, but it is, 'Pray, Tom, do it.' The drawers where he drinks live in perfect happiness. He asked Will at the George the other day, how he did? Where he used to say, 'Damn it, it is so;' he now 'believes there is some mistake; he must confess, he is of another opinion; but, however, he will not insist.'"[264]This Colonel Ranter is supposed by the commentators to have been Brigadier-General Churchill, one of the Marlborough family, who lived with Mrs. Oldfield after the death of Mr. Maynwaring. Steele elsewhere speaks of a "General" (supposed to be the same) "weeping for her, in the character of Indiana in his 'Conscious Lovers;'" upon which he said Mr. Wilks observed (for he had made all the fine gentlemen tender) that the General "would fight ne'er the worse for that."
Mrs. Oldfield's position in life was singular. With all her beauty and attraction, and the license of stage manners, she is understood to have attached herself but to two persons successively, and on the footing of a wife. The first was Mr. Maynwaring, a celebrated Whig writer, to whom one of the volumes of "The Spectator" is dedicated, and by whom she had a son; and, after his death, she lived with General Churchill, by whom she had a son also. "She left," says 'The General Biography,' "the bulk of her substance to her son Maynwaring, from whose father she had received it;without neglecting, however, her other son Churchill, and her own relations."
During the period of these two connections, Mrs. Oldfield appears to have been received into the first circles, where she is described as being a pattern of good behaviour; and yet the feeling of Mr. Maynwaring's friends against the connection was so strong, that she herself, though she is understood to have had a sincere affection for him, is said to have often remonstrated with him against it as injurious to his interest. Marriage with an actress, though the example had been set by a duke, appears in neither case to have been thought of. The feeling of society seems to have been this:—"Here is a woman bred up to the stage, and passing her life upon it. It is therefore impossible she should marry a gentleman of family; and yet, as her behaviour would otherwise deserve it, and the examples of actresses are of no authority for any one but themselves, some license may be allowed to a woman who diverts us so agreeably, who attracts the society of the wits, and is so capital a dresser. We will treat her profession with contempt, but herself with consideration." Upon these curious grounds Mrs. Oldfield lived in every respect like a woman of fashion, and as she became rich (which was, perhaps, not the least of her recommendations), she was admitted into the best society, and went to court. The pretence among her visitors during both her connections probably was, that she was privately married; but she was too sincere to warrant the deception. The Princess of Wales (afterwards queen of George II.) asked her one day at a levee if her marriage with General Churchill was true. "So it is said, may it please your highness, but we have not owned it yet."—"It may appear singular," says Mr. Chalmers, who tells us this story, "to quote the late pious Sir James Stonhouse for anecdotes of Mrs. Oldfield; yet in one of his letters we are informed, that she always went to the house in the same dress she had worn at dinner in her visits to the houses of great people; for she was much caressed on account of her professional merit and her connection with Mr. Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough's brother; that she used to go to the playhouse in a chair, attended by two footmen; that she seldom spoke to any one of the actors; and was allowed a sum of money to buy her own clothes."[265]Mrs. Oldfield'sgenerosity was much admired in giving a pension to Savage, which he received regularly as long as she lived. This is what has given posterity a liking for her. When she died she lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and her funeral in Westminster Abbey was attended by several noblemen, among others, as pall-bearers. Mr. Chalmers has repeated, with other biographers, that, "at her own desire," she was elegantly dressed in her coffin; on which account, it is added, Pope introduced her in the character of Narcissa:
"Odious! in wollen! 'twould a saint provoke,(Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke);No, let a charming chintz and Brussels laceWrap my cold limbs and shade my lifeless face:One would not sure be frightful when one's dead—And, Betty, give this cheek a little red."
"Odious! in wollen! 'twould a saint provoke,(Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke);No, let a charming chintz and Brussels laceWrap my cold limbs and shade my lifeless face:One would not sure be frightful when one's dead—And, Betty, give this cheek a little red."
"Odious! in wollen! 'twould a saint provoke,(Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke);No, let a charming chintz and Brussels laceWrap my cold limbs and shade my lifeless face:One would not sure be frightful when one's dead—And, Betty, give this cheek a little red."
"Odious! in wollen! 'twould a saint provoke,
(Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke);
No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace
Wrap my cold limbs and shade my lifeless face:
One would not sure be frightful when one's dead—
And, Betty, give this cheek a little red."
But it does not appear that there is any authority for this speech, except the poet's. A letter written to her first biographer by an attendant during her last illness says, that "although she had no priest," she "prayed without ceasing," which does not look like an attention to dress; but the biographer adds, that "as the nicety of dress was her delight when living, she was as nicely dressed after her decease; being, by Mrs. Saunders' direction, thus laid in her coffin." The nicety here mentioned was, to be sure, "mortal fine."—"She had on," says the writer, "a very fine Brussels lace-head, a Holland shift with tucker, and double ruffles of the same lace; a pair of new kid gloves, and her body wrapt up in a winding sheet."[266]Yet we are of Montaigne's opinion, and know not why death should be rendered more melancholy than it is. When a tomb was opened in Greece, supposed to be that of Aspasia, there was found in it a sprig of myrtle in gold.
The next batch of players, with Garrick at their head, are Quin, Macklin, Barry, King, Woodward, Gentleman Smith, and others; with Mrs. Clive, Pritchard, Cibber, and Woffington. Garrick's later contemporaries are Parsons, Dodd, Quick, the Palmers, Miss Pope, Mrs. Abingdon, and others, who bring us down to Mrs. Siddons, Miss Farren, &c., the commencers of our own time. Of Steele and the sentimental comedy we need say no more. Goldsmith belongs to Covent Garden; Foote to the Haymarket; and Cumberland, though an elegant writer, does not call for any particular mention in an abstract like this.
When Garrick first appeared, a declamatory grandeur prevailed in tragedy, which we conceive to have arisen in the time of Charles II. It was probably handed down by Booth; and imitated, with the usual deterioration, from Betterton, who, though a true genius and a universal one, may not have been uncorrupted by the taste of the times; not to mention that it is doubtful, till Garrick appeared, whether the art of acting was not identified with something too much of an art, and the delicacy of verses expected to partake more of recitation and musical accompaniment than we now look for. Our suspicion to this effect arises from the traditional habits of the stage, one generation handing down the manner of another, and Betterton himself having been educated in the school of those who were bred up in the recollection of Burbage and Condell. Shakspeare himself, from custom, or even from some subtlety of reason, might have approved of something of this kind; though, on the other hand, in the celebrated directions of Hamlet to the players, there appears to be a secret dissatisfaction with the most applauded actors of that time, as not being exactly what was desirable. If this notion is just, and the great poet of nature was as much advanced beyond his time in this as in other respects, he might indeed have hailed such an actor as Garrick, however hyperbolically they have been sometimes put together. The best performers whom Garrick found in possession of public applause, though some of them are described as excelling in all the varieties of passion (as Mrs. Cibber, for instance, notwithstanding the different impression given of her in the following quotation), appear to have been more or less of the old declamatory school. Quin in particular, then at the head of the profession, was an avowed declaimer, having the same notions of tragedy in the delivery which his friend Thomson had in the composition. Posterity respects Quin as the friend of Thomson, and laughs with him as an epicure and a wit. Garrick and he ultimately became friends. Of the first reception of the new style introduced by Garrick, its electrical effects upon some, and the natural hesitation of others to give up their old favourites, a lively picture has been left us by Cumberland.
Speaking of himself, who was then at Westminster school, he says,—
"I was once or twice allowed to go, under proper convoy, to the play, where, for the first time in my life, I was treated by the sightof Garrick in the character of Lothario. Quin played Horatio; Ryan, Altamont; Mrs. Cibber, Calista; and Mrs. Pritchard condescended to the humble part of Lavinia. I enjoyed a good view of the stage from the front row of the gallery, and my attention was rivetted to the scene. I have the spectacle even now, as it were, before my eyes. Quin presented himself, upon the rising of the curtain, in a green velvet coat, embroidered down the seams, an enormous full-bottomed periwig, rolled stockings, and high-heeled, square-toed shoes. With very little variation of cadence, and in a deep, full tone, accompanied by a sawing kind of action, which had more of the senate than of the stage in it, he rolled out his heroics with an air of dignified indifference, that seemed to disdain the plaudits that were bestowed upon him. Mrs. Cibber, in a key high pitched, but sweet withal, sung, or rather recitatived, Rowe's harmonious strain, something in the manner of the improvisatore's; it was so extremely wanting in contrast, that, though it did not wound the ear, it wearied it; when she had once recited two or three speeches, I could anticipate the manner of every succeeding one; it was like a long, old, legendary ballad of innumerable stanzas, every one of which is sung to the same tune, eternally chiming in the ear without variation or relief. Mrs. Pritchard was an actress of a different cast, had more nature, and, of course, more change of tone, and variety both of action and expression: in my opinion the comparison was decidedly in her favour; but when, after long and eager expectation, I first beheld little Garrick, then young and light and alive in every muscle and in every feature, come bounding on the stage, and pointing at the wittol Altamont and heavy-paced Horatio—heavens, what a transition!—it seemed as if a whole century had been swept over in the transition of a single scene; old things were done away and a new order at once brought forward, bright and luminous, and clearly destined to dispel the barbarisms and bigotry of a tasteless age, too long attached to the prejudices of custom, and superstitiously devoted to the illusions of imposing declamation. This heaven-born actor was then struggling to emancipate his audience from the slavery they were resigned to; and though, at times, he succeeded in throwing in some gleams of newborn light upon them, yet, in general they seemed tolove darkness better than light, and, in the dialogue of altercation between Horatio and Lothario, bestowed far the greatershow of handsupon the master of the old school than upon the founder of the new. I thank my stars, my feelings in those moments led me right; they were those of nature, and therefore could not err."[267]
"I was once or twice allowed to go, under proper convoy, to the play, where, for the first time in my life, I was treated by the sightof Garrick in the character of Lothario. Quin played Horatio; Ryan, Altamont; Mrs. Cibber, Calista; and Mrs. Pritchard condescended to the humble part of Lavinia. I enjoyed a good view of the stage from the front row of the gallery, and my attention was rivetted to the scene. I have the spectacle even now, as it were, before my eyes. Quin presented himself, upon the rising of the curtain, in a green velvet coat, embroidered down the seams, an enormous full-bottomed periwig, rolled stockings, and high-heeled, square-toed shoes. With very little variation of cadence, and in a deep, full tone, accompanied by a sawing kind of action, which had more of the senate than of the stage in it, he rolled out his heroics with an air of dignified indifference, that seemed to disdain the plaudits that were bestowed upon him. Mrs. Cibber, in a key high pitched, but sweet withal, sung, or rather recitatived, Rowe's harmonious strain, something in the manner of the improvisatore's; it was so extremely wanting in contrast, that, though it did not wound the ear, it wearied it; when she had once recited two or three speeches, I could anticipate the manner of every succeeding one; it was like a long, old, legendary ballad of innumerable stanzas, every one of which is sung to the same tune, eternally chiming in the ear without variation or relief. Mrs. Pritchard was an actress of a different cast, had more nature, and, of course, more change of tone, and variety both of action and expression: in my opinion the comparison was decidedly in her favour; but when, after long and eager expectation, I first beheld little Garrick, then young and light and alive in every muscle and in every feature, come bounding on the stage, and pointing at the wittol Altamont and heavy-paced Horatio—heavens, what a transition!—it seemed as if a whole century had been swept over in the transition of a single scene; old things were done away and a new order at once brought forward, bright and luminous, and clearly destined to dispel the barbarisms and bigotry of a tasteless age, too long attached to the prejudices of custom, and superstitiously devoted to the illusions of imposing declamation. This heaven-born actor was then struggling to emancipate his audience from the slavery they were resigned to; and though, at times, he succeeded in throwing in some gleams of newborn light upon them, yet, in general they seemed tolove darkness better than light, and, in the dialogue of altercation between Horatio and Lothario, bestowed far the greatershow of handsupon the master of the old school than upon the founder of the new. I thank my stars, my feelings in those moments led me right; they were those of nature, and therefore could not err."[267]
It is needless to add that Garrick excelled in comedy as well as tragedy, and in the lowest comedy too—in Abel Drugger as well as Hamlet. He was first at Goodman's Fields; then appeared both at Covent Garden and Drury Lane; but in a short time settled for life at Drury Lane as actor, manager, and author. He was a sprightly dramatist, a man of wit, and no doubt a generous man, though the endless matters of business in which he was concerned, and the refusals of all kinds which he must have been often forced into, got him, with many, a character for the reverse. Johnson, who did not spare him, pronounced him generous. Fine as his tragedy must have been, we suspect his comedy must have been finer; because his own nature was one of greater sprightliness than sentiment. We hear nothing serious of him throughout his life; and his face, with a great deal of acuteness, has nothing in it profound or romantic.
Garrick has the reputation of improving the stage costume: but it was Macklin that did it. The late Mr. West, who was the first (in his picture of the "Death of Wolfe") to omit the absurdity of putting a piece of armour instead of a waistcoat upon a general officer, told us, that he himself once asked Garrick why he did not reform the stage in that particular. Garrick said the spectators would not allow it; "they would throw a bottle at his head." Macklin, however, persevered, and the thing was done. The other, with all his nature, seems to have had a hankering after the old dresses. He had first triumphed in them, and they suited his propensity to the airy and popular. Garrick had a particular dislike to appearing in the Roman costume. Probably in this there was a consciousness of his small person. There are many engravings of him extant, in which his tragic characters are seen in coats and toupees. His appearance as Hotspur, in a laced frock and Ramillie wig, was objected to, not as being unsuitable to the time, but as "too insignificant for the character."[268]
Of Barry, the most celebrated antagonist of Garrick, we shall speak at Covent Garden. King, according to Churchill, by the force of natural impudence as well as genius, excelled in "Brass;" and Churchill's opinions are worth attending to,though he expresses them with vehemence, and by wholesale.GentlemanSmith explains his character by his title. We should entertain a very high opinion of Mrs. Pritchard, even had she left us nothing but the face in her portraits. She seems to have been a really great genius, equally capable of the highest and lowest parts. The fault objected to her was, that her figure was not genteel; and we can imagine this well enough in an actress who could pass from Lady Macbeth to Doll Common. She seems to have thrown herself into the arms of sincerity and passion, not, perhaps, the most refined, but as tragic and comic as need be. As Churchill says,
"Before such merits all objections fly,Pritchard's genteel, and Garrick six feet high."
"Before such merits all objections fly,Pritchard's genteel, and Garrick six feet high."
"Before such merits all objections fly,Pritchard's genteel, and Garrick six feet high."
"Before such merits all objections fly,
Pritchard's genteel, and Garrick six feet high."
Clive was an admirable comic actress, of the wilful and fantastic order, and a wit and virago in private life. She became the neighbour and intimate of Horace Walpole, and always seems to us to have been themanof the two. Mrs. Woffington was an actress of all work, but of greater talents than the phrase generally implies. Davies says she was the handsomest woman that ever appeared on the stage, and that Garrick was at one time in doubt whether he should not marry her. She was famous for performing in male attire, and openly preferred the conversation of men to women—the latter she said, talking of "nothing but silks and scandal." She was the only woman admitted into one of the beef-steak clubs, and is said to have been president of it. These humours, perhaps, though Davies praises her for feminine manners, as contrasted with her antagonist Mrs. Clive, frightened Garrick out of his matrimony.
We now pass at once to Covent Garden Theatre, which lies close by. Many old play-goers who are in the habit of associating the two theatres in their fancy, like twins, will be surprised to hear that the Covent Garden establishment is very young, compared with her sister, being little more than a hundred years old. It was first built by Rich, the harlequin, and opened in 1733 under the patent granted to the Duke's company. The Covent Garden company may therefore be considered as the representatives of the old companies of Davenant and Betterton; while those at Drury Lane are the successors of Killigrew, and more emphatically the King's actors. Indeed, they exclusively designate themselves as "his Majesty's servants;" and, we believe, claim some privileges on that account. Covent Garden theatre was partly rebuiltin 1772, and wholly so in 1809, having undergone the usual death by conflagration. The new edifice was a structure in classical taste, by Mr. Smirke, the portico being a copy from the Parthenon of Athens.[269]
Actors have seldom been confined to any one house; and those whom we are about to mention performed at Drury Lane as well as Covent Garden; but as they were rivals or opponents of Garrick, and may be supposed to have made the greatest efforts when they acted on a different stage, we shall speak of them apart under the present head. The first of them is Barry, who at one time almost divided the favour of of the town with Garrick, and in some characters is said to have excelled him, especially in love parts. How far this was owing to superiority of figure, and to a reputation for gallantry, it is impossible to say; and never were judgments more discordant than those which have been left us on the subject of Barry's merits. For instance, his character is thus summed up by Davies:—
"Of all the tragic actors who have trod the English stage for these last fifty years, Mr. Barry was unquestionably the most pleasing. Since Booth and Wilks, no actor had shown the public a just idea of the hero or the lover; Barry gave dignity to the one and passion to the other: in his person he was tall without awkwardness; in his countenance, handsome without effeminacy; in his uttering of passion, the language of nature alone was communicated to the feelings of an audience."
"Of all the tragic actors who have trod the English stage for these last fifty years, Mr. Barry was unquestionably the most pleasing. Since Booth and Wilks, no actor had shown the public a just idea of the hero or the lover; Barry gave dignity to the one and passion to the other: in his person he was tall without awkwardness; in his countenance, handsome without effeminacy; in his uttering of passion, the language of nature alone was communicated to the feelings of an audience."
Davies proceeds to tell us, that Barry could not perform such characters as Richard and Macbeth, though he made a capital Alexander. "He charmed the ladies by the soft melody of his love-complaints, and the noble ardour of his courtship. There was no passion of the tender kind so truly pathetic and forcible in any actor as in Barry, except in Mrs. Cibber, who, indeed, excelled, in the expression of love, grief, tenderness, and jealous rage, all I ever knew. Happy it was for the frequenters of the theatre, when these two genuine children of nature united their efforts to charm an attentive audience. Mrs. Cibber, indeed, might be styled the daughter or sister of Mr. Garrick, but could be only the mistress or wife of Barry."[270]Our author afterwards calls him the"Mark Antony of the stage," whether his amorous disposition was considered, or his love of expense. He delighted in giving magnificent entertainments, and treated Mr. Pelham, who once invited himself to sup with him, in a style so princely, that the Minister rebuked him for it; which was not very civil. An actor has surely as much right to do absurd things as a statesman.
Now, as a contrast to this romantic portrait by Davies, take the following from the severer but masterly hand of Churchill:—
"In person taller than the common size,Behold where Barry draws admiring eyes;When lab'ring passions in his bosom pent,Convulsive rage, and struggling heave for vent,Spectators, with imagined terrors warm,Anxious expect the bursting of the storm:But, all unfit in such a pile to dwell,His voice comes forth like Echo from her cell;To swell the tempest needful aid denies,And all a-down the stage in feeble murmur dies.What man, like Barry, with such pains, can errIn elocution, action, character?What man could give, if Barry was not here,Such well-applauded tenderness to Lear?Who else can speak so very, very fine,That sense may kindly end with every line?Some dozen lines, before the ghost is there,Behold him for the solemn scene prepare.See how he frames his eyes, poises each limb,Puts the whole body into proper trim,—From whence we learn, with no great stretch of art,Five lines hence comes a ghost, and lo! a start.When he appears most perfect, still we findSomething which jars upon and hurts the mind.Whatever lights upon a part are thrown,We see too plainly they are not his own:No flame from nature ever yet he caught,Nor knew a feeling which he was not taught;He raised his trophies on the base of art,And conn'd his passions, as he conn'd his part."[271]
"In person taller than the common size,Behold where Barry draws admiring eyes;When lab'ring passions in his bosom pent,Convulsive rage, and struggling heave for vent,Spectators, with imagined terrors warm,Anxious expect the bursting of the storm:But, all unfit in such a pile to dwell,His voice comes forth like Echo from her cell;To swell the tempest needful aid denies,And all a-down the stage in feeble murmur dies.What man, like Barry, with such pains, can errIn elocution, action, character?What man could give, if Barry was not here,Such well-applauded tenderness to Lear?Who else can speak so very, very fine,That sense may kindly end with every line?Some dozen lines, before the ghost is there,Behold him for the solemn scene prepare.See how he frames his eyes, poises each limb,Puts the whole body into proper trim,—From whence we learn, with no great stretch of art,Five lines hence comes a ghost, and lo! a start.When he appears most perfect, still we findSomething which jars upon and hurts the mind.Whatever lights upon a part are thrown,We see too plainly they are not his own:No flame from nature ever yet he caught,Nor knew a feeling which he was not taught;He raised his trophies on the base of art,And conn'd his passions, as he conn'd his part."[271]
"In person taller than the common size,Behold where Barry draws admiring eyes;When lab'ring passions in his bosom pent,Convulsive rage, and struggling heave for vent,Spectators, with imagined terrors warm,Anxious expect the bursting of the storm:But, all unfit in such a pile to dwell,His voice comes forth like Echo from her cell;To swell the tempest needful aid denies,And all a-down the stage in feeble murmur dies.What man, like Barry, with such pains, can errIn elocution, action, character?What man could give, if Barry was not here,Such well-applauded tenderness to Lear?Who else can speak so very, very fine,That sense may kindly end with every line?Some dozen lines, before the ghost is there,Behold him for the solemn scene prepare.See how he frames his eyes, poises each limb,Puts the whole body into proper trim,—From whence we learn, with no great stretch of art,Five lines hence comes a ghost, and lo! a start.When he appears most perfect, still we findSomething which jars upon and hurts the mind.Whatever lights upon a part are thrown,We see too plainly they are not his own:No flame from nature ever yet he caught,Nor knew a feeling which he was not taught;He raised his trophies on the base of art,And conn'd his passions, as he conn'd his part."[271]
"In person taller than the common size,
Behold where Barry draws admiring eyes;
When lab'ring passions in his bosom pent,
Convulsive rage, and struggling heave for vent,
Spectators, with imagined terrors warm,
Anxious expect the bursting of the storm:
But, all unfit in such a pile to dwell,
His voice comes forth like Echo from her cell;
To swell the tempest needful aid denies,
And all a-down the stage in feeble murmur dies.
What man, like Barry, with such pains, can err
In elocution, action, character?
What man could give, if Barry was not here,
Such well-applauded tenderness to Lear?
Who else can speak so very, very fine,
That sense may kindly end with every line?
Some dozen lines, before the ghost is there,
Behold him for the solemn scene prepare.
See how he frames his eyes, poises each limb,
Puts the whole body into proper trim,—
From whence we learn, with no great stretch of art,
Five lines hence comes a ghost, and lo! a start.
When he appears most perfect, still we find
Something which jars upon and hurts the mind.
Whatever lights upon a part are thrown,
We see too plainly they are not his own:
No flame from nature ever yet he caught,
Nor knew a feeling which he was not taught;
He raised his trophies on the base of art,
And conn'd his passions, as he conn'd his part."[271]
The probability, we fear, is that Barry was one of the old artificial school, who made his way more by person than by genius. Davies, who was a better gossip than critic, though he affected literature, was an actor himself of the mouthing order, if we are to believe Churchill; and his criticisms show him enough inclined to lean favourably to that side.
We have spoken of Quin, who acted much at this house in opposition to Garrick. It was here that he delivered the prologueto the memory of his friend Thomson; and affected the audience by shedding real tears.[272]
Macklin was celebrated in Shylock; and in some other sarcastic parts, particularly that of Sir Archy, in his comedy of "Love-à-la-Mode." We take him to have been one of those actors whose performances are confined to the reflection of their own personal peculiarities. The merits of Shuter, Edwin, Quick, and others who succeeded one another as buffoons, were perhaps a good deal of this sort; but pleasant humours are rare and acceptable. Macklin was a clever satirist in his writing, and embroiled himself, not so cleverly, with a variety of his acquaintances. He foolishly attempted to run down Garrick; and once, in a sudden quarrel, poked out a man's eye with his stick and killed him; for which he narrowly escaped hanging. However, he was sorry for it; and he is spoken of, by the stage historians, as kind in his private relations, and liberal of his purse. A curious specimen of his latter moments we reserve for our mention of the house where he died.
Woodward seems to have been a caricature anticipation of Lewis, and was a capital harlequin. But nobody in harlequins beat Rich, the manager of this theatre. His pantomimes and spectacles produced a re-action against Garrick, when nothing else could; and Covent Garden ever since has been reckoned the superior house in that kind of merit,—"the wit," as Mr. Ludlow Holt called it, "of goods and chattels." However, a considerable degree of fancy and observation may be developed in pantomime: it is the triumph of animal spirits at Christmas, for the little children; and for the men there is occasionally some excellent satire on the times, reminding one, in its spirit, of what we read of the comic buffoonery of the ancients. Grimaldi, in his broad and fugitive sketches, often showed himself a shrewder observer than many a comic actor who can repeat only what is set down for him. Covent Garden has, perhaps, been superior also in music, at least sincethe existence of the two houses together: for Purcell was before its time. Many of Arne's pieces came out here; and the famous Beard, a singer as manly as his name, the delight both of public and private life, was one of the managers.
Among the Covent Garden actors must not be forgotten Cooke, who came out there in Richard III. For some time he was the greatest performer of this and a few other characters. He was a new kind of Macklin, and like him, excelled in Shylock and Sir Archy M'Sarcasm; a confined actor, and a wayward man, but highly impressive in what he could do. His artful villains have been found fault with for looking too artful and villanous; but men of that stamp are apt to look so. The art of hiding is a considerable one; but habit will betray it after all, and stand foremost in the countenance. They who think otherwise are only too dull to see it. Besides, Cooke had generally to represent bold-faced, aspiring art; and to hug himself in its triumph. This he did with such a gloating countenance, as if villany was pure luxury in him, and with such a soft inward retreating of his voice—a wrapping up of himself, as it were, in velvet—so different from his ordinary rough way, that sometimes one could almost have wished to abuse him.
John Kemble, who, like the whole respectable family of that name, contributed much to maintain the rising character of the profession, may be considered the last popular actor of the declamatory school. His sister was a far greater performer, a true theatrical genius, especially for the stately and dominant; and had a great effect in raising the character of the profession. The growth of liberal opinion is nowhere more visible than in the different estimation in which actors and actresses are now held, compared with what it was. Individuals, it is true, always made their way into society by dint of the interest they excited; but still they were upon sufferance. Anybody could insult an actor, could even beat him, without its being dreamt that he had a right to retaliate; and the most amiable and lady-like actresses were thought unfit for wives, as we have seen in the case of Mrs. Oldfield. Things are now upon a different footing. Talent is allowed its just pretensions, whether coming from author or performer, and actresses have taken such a step, in ascension, that nobility almost seems to look out for a wife among them, as in a school that will inevitably furnish it with some kind of grace and intellect. The famous Lord Peterborough, who was the first nobleman that married an actress, kept theunion concealed as long as he could, and only owned it just before his death. The Duke of Bolton, who married Miss Fenton, the Polly of Gay's opera, had first had several children by her as his mistress; so that this is hardly a case in point; and the marriage of Beard, the singer, with a lady of the Waldegrave family, though he was one of the most excellent of men, was looked upon as such a degradation, that they have contrived to omit the circumstance in the peerage-books to this day! Martin Folkes's marriage with Mrs. Bradshaw probably made the world consider the case a little more rationally, as he was a clever man; but Lord Derby's marriage with Miss Farren, who was eminently the gentlewoman, as well as of spotless character, seems to have been the first that rendered such unions compatible with public opinion. Lord Craven's with Miss Brunton followed, though at a considerable interval; and since that time, the town are so far from being surprised at the marriages of actresses with people of rank or fashion, that they seem to look for them. Lord Thurlow, not long afterwards, married Miss Bolton; another noble lord was lately the husband of an eminent singer; and several other favourites of the town, Miss Tree, Miss O'Neill, &c., have become the wives of men of fortune. We remember even a dancer, Miss Searle (but she was of great elegance, and had an air of delicate self-possession), who married into a family of rank.
The whole entertainment of a theatre has been rising in point of accommodation and propriety for the last fifty years. The scenery is better, the music better—we mean the orchestra—and last, not least, the audiences are better. They are better behaved. Garrick put an end to one great nuisance—the occupation, by the audience, of part of the stage. Till his time, people often sat about a stage as at the sides of a room, and the actor had to make his way among them, sometimes with the chance of being insulted; and scuffles took place among themselves. Dr. Johnson, at Lichfield, is said to have pushed a man into the orchestra who had taken possession of his chair. The pit, also, from about Garrick's time, seems to have left to the galleries the vulgarity attributed to it by Pope. There still remains, says he—