บทที่ บทที่ 1 · 普列姆昌德短篇小说选

CHAPTER 1. MRS. OLDFIELD.

Artists who have been wont to look into the _Vicar of Wakefield_,

_Gil Blas_, and last century comedies, for picturesque subjects,

would find account in referring to the lives of our actresses. Here

is not a bad picture of its class. The time is at the close of the

seventeenth century; the scene is at the Mitre Tavern in St. James's

Market, kept by one Mrs. Voss. It is a quiet summer evening, and

after the fatigues of the day are over, and before the later business

of the night has commenced, that buxom lady is reclining in an easy

chair, listening to a fair and bright young creature, her sister,[1]

who is reading aloud, and is enjoying what she reads. Her eyes, like

Kathleen's in the song, are beaming with light, her face glowing with

intelligence and feeling. Even an elderly lady, their mother, turns

away from the picture of her husband, who had ridden in the Guards,

and held a commission under James II.--she turns from this, and

memories of old days, to gaze with tender admiration on her brilliant

young daughter; who, be it said, at this present reading, is only an

apprentice to a seamstress in King Street, Westminster.

But the soul of Thalia is under her bodice, into a neater than which,

Anadyomene could not have laced herself. She is rapt in the reading,

and with book held out, and face upraised, and figure displayed at

its very best, she enthrals her audience, unconscious herself that

this is more numerous than she might have supposed. On the threshold

of the open door stand a couple of guests; one of them has, to

us, no name; the other is a gay, rollicking young fellow, smartly

dressed, a semi-military look about him, good humour rippling over

his face, combined with an air of astonishment and delight. This is

Captain Farquhar. His sight and hearing are wholly concentrated on

that enchanted and enchanting girl, who, unmindful of aught but the

"Scornful Lady," continues still reading aloud that rattling comedy

of Beaumont and Fletcher. How the mother listened to it all is not to

be told; but nearly a century later Queen Charlotte could listen to

her daughters reading "Polly Honeycombe," and no harm done. We may

fancy the young reader at the Mitre, whose name is Anne Oldfield, in

that silvery voice for which she was famed, half in sadness and half

in mirth, reading the lines in which the lady says:--

"All we that are call'd woman, know as well

As men, it were a far more noble thing

To grace where we are graced, and give respect

There where we are respected: yet we practise

A wilder course, and never bend our eyes

On men with pleasure, till they find the way

To give us a neglect. Then we too late

Perceive the loss of what we might have had,

And dote to death."

Captain Farquhar, at whatever passage in the play, betrayed his

presence by his involuntary applause. The girl looked towards him

more pleased than abashed; and when the captain pronounced that there

was in her the stuff for an exquisite actress, the fluttered thing

clasped her hands, glowed at the prophecy, and protested in her turn,

that of all conditions it was the one she wished most ardently to

fulfil. From that moment the glory and the mischief were commenced.

The tall girl stood up, her large eyes dilating, the assured future

Lady Betty Modish and Biddy Tipkin, Farquhar's own Sylvia and Mrs.

Sullen, the Violante and the Lady Townley that were to set the

playgoing world mad with delight; the Andromache, Marcia, and Jane

Shore, that were to wring tears from them; the supreme lady in all,

but chiefest in comedy; and that "genteel," for which she seemed

expressly born.

Farquhar talked of her to Vanbrugh, and Vanbrugh introduced her to

Rich, and Rich took her into his company, assigned her a beginner's

salary, fifteen shillings a week, and gave her nothing to do. She had

a better life of it at the seamstress's in King Street. But she had

time to spare and leisure to wait. She was barely fifteen, when, in

1700, she played Alinda, in Vanbrugh's adaptation from Beaumont and

Fletcher, the "Pilgrim." The next three or four years were those of

probation; and when, in the season of 1704-5, Cibber assigned to her

the part of Lady Betty Modish, in his "Careless Husband," the town at

once recognised in her the most finished actress of such difficult

yet effective parts of her day.

The gentle Alinda suited the years and inexperience of Mrs. Oldfield;

her youth was in her favour, and her figure, but therewith was such

great diffidence, that she had not courage enough to modulate her

voice. Cibber watched her; he could see nothing to recommend her,

save her graceful person. But there reached his ear occasional silver

tones, which seemed to assure him of the rare excellence of the

instrument. Still, like "the great Mrs. Barry," her first appearances

were failures; and such were those of Sarah Siddons, in after years.

Warmed by encouraging applause, however, the promise ripened, and

with opportunity, the perfection that came was demonstrated both to

watchful Cibber and an expectant public.

In 1703 the company was at Bath, where Queen Anne might have

been seen in the Pump Room in the morning,--later in the day, at

the play. But the joyous and brilliant queen of comedy was _not_

there. Mrs. Verbruggen, the Mrs. Mountfort of earlier days, was ill

in town, nursing a baby, whose birth ultimately cost the life of

the mother. There was a scramble for her parts. Each of the more

influential actresses obtained several; but to young and unobtrusive

Mrs. Oldfield, there fell but one,--the mediocre part of Leonora,

in "Sir Courtly Nice." Cibber reluctantly ran over the scenes with

her, at her request, in which the Knight and the Lady meet. He was

careless, from lack of appreciation of the actress; _she_ was piqued,

and sullenly repeated the words set down for her. There was, in

short, a mutual distaste. _But_, when the night came, Colley saw

the almost perfect actress before him, and as he says,--"she had a

just occasion to triumph over the error of my judgment by the almost

amazement that her unexpected performance awaked me to; so sudden

and forward a step into nature I had never seen. And what made her

performance more valuable was, that I knew it all proceeded from

her own understanding,--untaught and unassisted by any one more

experienced actor." Any other player but Cibber, in his place, would

have laid Anne Oldfield's success to the instruction he had given her

at rehearsal.

Colley Cibber had then in his desk the unfinished manuscript of his

"Careless Husband;" it had long lain there, through the author's

hopelessness of ever finding an actress who would realise his idea of

Lady Betty Modish. He had no longer any doubt. He at once finished

the piece, brought it on the stage, and silent as to his own share

in the triumph, attributed it all, or nearly all, to Mrs. Oldfield.

"Not only to the uncommon excellence of her action; but even to her

personal manner of conversing." I must repeat what Cibber tells us,

that many of the sentiments were Mrs. Oldfield's, dressed up by him,

"with a little more care than when they negligently fell from her

lively humour." Respecting what Cibber adds, that "had her birth

placed her in a higher rank of life, she had certainly appeared to

be, in reality, what in the play she only excellently acted,--an

agreeably gay woman of quality, a little too conscious of her natural

attractions," I will remark that, as she really appeared to be so,

her birth (she was a gentleman's daughter) could not prevent her

from appearing so. And Cibber avows, what the testimony of Walpole

confirms, that he had "often seen her in private societies, where

women of the best rank might have borrowed some part of her behaviour

without the least diminution of their sense of dignity."

In 1702, the merit of Mrs. Oldfield was not recognised by Gildon,

who, in his "Comparison between the two Stages," classes her among

"the rubbish," of which the stage should be swept. Of Mrs. Verbruggen

(Mountfort), he speaks as "a miracle." He could not see that Oldfield

would be her successor, and would, in some parts, even excel her.

By the year 1706, however, she had risen to be on an equality with

such a brilliant favourite as Mrs. Bracegirdle, whom, in the opinion

of many, her younger competitor surpassed. The salary of the latter

then, and for some years later, was not, however, a large one, if

measured by modern rule. Four pounds a week, with a benefit,--in all,

little more than £250 a year, cannot be called excessive guerdon. Her

own benefit was always profitable; but I am sorry to add, that this

joyous-looking creature, apparently brimful of good nature, was very

reluctant to play for the benefit of her colleagues. Subsequently,

her revenue from the stage-salary and benefit averaged about £500 a

year.

A remark of hers to Cibber, shows how she entered into the spirit of

her parts. Cibber had replaced Dicky Norris, who was ill, in the part

of Barnaby Brittle, in the "Amorous Widow," in which Mrs. Oldfield

played Barnaby's wife. The couple are a sort of George Dandin and his

spouse. When the play was over, Cibber asked her, in his familiar

way, "Nancy, how did you like your new husband?" "Very well," said

she; "but not half so well as Dicky Norris." "How so?" asked Cibber.

"You are too important a figure," she answered; "but Dicky is so

diminutive, and looks so sneaking, that he seems born to be deceived;

and when he plays with me, I make him what a husband most dislikes to

be, with hearty good will."

Genest cites Cibber, Chetwood, and Davies, in order to describe her

adequately. "After her success in Lady Betty Modish," he says, "all

that nature had given her of the actress seemed to have risen to its

full perfection; but the variety of her powers could not be known

till she was seen in variety of characters which, as fast as they

fell to her, she equally excelled in. 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 Lady Townley, one of her last new parts, was a proof that

she was still able to do more, if more could have been done for her."

Davies, after noticing her figure and expression, says of her "large

speaking eyes," that in some particular comic situations she kept

them half shut, "especially when she intended to give effect to some

brilliant or gay thought. In sprightliness of air and elegance of

manner, she excelled all actresses, and was greatly superior in the

clear, sonorous, and harmonious tones of her voice."

How are Wilks and the inimitable She photographed for posterity?

"Wilks's Copper Captain was esteemed one of his best characters. Mrs.

Oldfield was equally happy in Estifania. When she drew the pistol

from her pocket, pretending to shoot Perez, Wilks drew back, as if

greatly terrified, and in a tremulous voice, uttered, 'What, thine

own husband!' To which she replied, with archness of countenance and

a half-shut eye, 'Let mine own husband then be in 's own wits,' in a

tone of voice in imitation of his, that the theatre was in a tumult

of applause."

[Illustration: (Mrs. Oldfield)]

From Cibber, again, we learn that she was modest and

unpresuming; that in all the parts she undertook, she sought

enlightenment and instruction from every quarter, "but it was a hard

matter to give her a hint that she was not able to improve." With

managers she was not exacting; "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 to be denied a

civility."

Like Mrs. Barry, she entered fully into the character she had to

represent, and examined it closely, in order to grasp it effectually.

When the "Beaux' Stratagem" was in rehearsal (1707), in which she

played Mrs. Sullen, she remarked to Wilks, that she thought the

author had dealt too freely with Mrs. Sullen, in giving her to

Archer, without such a proper divorce as would be a security to her

honour. Wilks communicated this to the author. "Tell her," said poor

Farquhar, who was then dying, "that for her peace of mind's sake,

I'll get a real divorce, marry her myself, and give her my bond she

shall be a real widow in less than a fortnight."

Mrs. Oldfield was the original representative of sixty-five

characters. The greater number of these belong to genteel comedy, as

it is called, a career which she commenced as peculiarly her own,

in 1703, when chance assigned to her the part of Leonora, in "Sir

Courtly Nice." Her wonderful success in this, induced Cibber to trust

to her the part of Lady Betty Modish, in the "Careless Husband," the

comedy which he had put aside in despair of finding a lady equal

to his conception of the character. Her mere conversation in that

play intoxicated the house. At a later period, her audiences were

even more ecstatic at her Lady Townley,--an ecstasy in which the

managers must have shared, for they immediately added fifty guineas

to her salary. It was just the sum which the benevolent actress gave

annually to that most contemptibly helpless personage, Savage. Her

highest salary never, I believe, exceeded three hundred guineas; but

this was exclusive of benefits, occasions on which gold was showered

into her lap.

Humour, grace, vivacity,--all were exuberant on the stage, when she

and Wilks were playing against each other. Indeed, one can hardly

realise the idea of this supreme queen of comedy wearing the robe and

illustrating the sorrows of tragedy. She, for her own part, disliked

the latter vocation. She hated, as she said often, to have a page

dragging her tail about. "Why do not they give these parts to Porter?

She can put on a better tragedy-face than I can." Earnest as she was,

however, in these characters before the audience, she was frolicsome

at rehearsal. When "Cato" was in preparation, Mrs. Oldfield was cast

for Marcia, the philosophical statesman's daughter. Addison attended

the rehearsals, and Swift was at Addison's side, making suggestions,

and marking the characteristics of the lively people about him. He

never had a good word for woman, and consequently he had his usual

coarse epithet for Mrs. Oldfield, speaking of her as "the drab that

played Cato's daughter;" and railing at her for her hilarity while

rehearsing that passionate part, and, in her forgetfulness, calling

merrily out to the prompter, "What next? what next?"

Yet this hilarious actress played Cleopatra with dignity, and

Calista with feeling. She accepted with great reluctance the part

of Semandra, in "Mithridates," when that tragedy was revived in

1708; but Chetwood says she performed the part to perfection, and

became reconciled to tragedy by reason of her success. In these

characters, however, she could be excelled by others, but in Lady

Betty Modish and Lady Townley she was probably never equalled. In

the comedy of lower life she was, perhaps, less original; at least,

Anthony Aston remarks, that in free comedy she borrowed something

from Mrs. Verbruggen's manner. When Wilks, as Lord Townley, exclaimed

"Prodigious!" in the famous scene with his lady, played by Mrs.

Oldfield, the house applied it to her acting, and broke into repeated

rounds of applause.

"Who should act genteel comedy, perfectly," asks Walpole, "but people

of fashion that have sense? Actors and actresses can only guess at

the tone of high life, and cannot be inspired with it. Why are there

so few genteel comedies, but because most comedies are written by

men not of that sphere. Etherege, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Cibber

wrote genteel comedy, because they lived in the best company; and

Mrs. Oldfield played it so well, because she not only followed, but

often set the fashion. General Burgoyne has writ the best modern

comedy for the same reason; and Miss Farren is as excellent as

Mrs. Oldfield, because she has lived with the best style of men in

England. Farquhar's plays talk the language of a marching regiment in

country quarters. Wycherley, Dryden, Mrs. Centlivre, &c., wrote as if

they had only lived in the _Rose Tavern_; but then the Court lived in

Drury Lane, too, and Lady Dorchester and Nell Gwyn were equally good

company."

In this there is some injustice against Mrs. Centlivre, for whose

name should be supplied that of Aphra Behn. Walpole judges more

correctly of the comic writers of the seventeenth century, when

he places Molière "Senor Moleiro," as Downes absurdly calls him,

at the head of them all. "Who upon earth," he says, "has written

such perfect comedies? for the 'Careless Husband' is but one; the

'Non-juror' was built on the 'Tartuffe,' and if the Man of Mode

(Etherege) and Vanbrugh are excellent, they are too indelicate; and

Congreve, who beat all for wit, is not always natural, still less,

simple."

It has been said of Mrs. Oldfield, that she never troubled the peace

of any lady at the head of a household; but I think she may have

marred the expectations of some who desired to reach that eminence.

She early captivated the heart of Mr. Maynwaring. He was a bachelor,

rich, connected with the government, and a hard drinker, according to

the prevailing fashion. He was Cymon subdued by Iphigenia. He loved

the lady's refinement, and she kept his household as carefully as if

she had been his wife, and presided at his table with a grace that

charmed him. There was something of Beauty and the Beast in this

connection, but the end of the fable was wanting; the animal was

never converted to an Azor, and a marriage with Zemira was the one

thing wanting.

When Maynwaring died, society almost looked upon her as an honest

widow. Indeed, it had never rejected her. The standard of morals was

low, and when the _quasi_ widow accepted the proposal of General

Churchill to place her at the head of his establishment, as she had

been in that of Mr. Maynwaring, no one blamed her. Marriage, indeed,

seems to have been thought of, and Queen Caroline, who did not at all

disdain to stoop to little matters of gossip, one day remarked to

Mrs. Oldfield, who had, I suppose, been reading to a court circle, "I

hear, Mrs. Oldfield, that you and the General are married?" "Madam,"

said the actress, playing her very best, "the General keeps his own

secrets!"

The two love passages in the life of Anne Oldfield were, in short,

founded on sentiment and not on interest. The Duke of Bedford offered

her more brilliant advantages than the General or the Squire; but

the disinterested actress spurned them, and kept sisterhood with

duchesses. She was to be seen on the terrace at Windsor, walking with

the consorts of dukes, and with countesses, and wives of English

barons, and the whole gay group might be heard calling one another by

their Christian names. In later days, Kitty Clive called such fine

folk "damaged quality;" and later still, the second Mrs. Barry did

not value such companionship at a "pin's fee;" but Anne Oldfield drew

from it many an illustration, which she transported to the stage.

During her last season, her sufferings were often so acute that when

the applause was loudest, the poor actress turned aside to hide the

tears forced from her by pain. She never gave up till the agony was

too great to be endured, and then she refused to receive a salary

which, according to her articles, was not to be discontinued in

illness. She lingered a few months in her house in Lower Grosvenor

Street; the details of her last moments, as given by Pope, mingle a

little truth with much error and exaggeration:--

"'Odious! in woollen? '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!'"

Betty was the ex-actress, Mrs. Saunders, who resided with Narcissa.

She had quitted the stage in 1720, and, says Mr. Urban, "attended

Mrs. Oldfield constantly, and did the office of priest to the last."

Poor Narcissa, after death, was attired in a Holland night-dress,

with tucker and double ruffles of Brussels lace, of which latter

material she also wore a head-dress, and a pair of "new kid gloves."

This, another writer calls being "buried in _full dress_." The report

seems to have been founded on Mrs. Oldfield's natural good taste

in costume. Flavia, such is her name in the _Tatler_, "is ever well

drest, and always the genteelest woman you meet; her clothes are so

exactly fitted that they appear part of her person."

It was in the above described dress that the deceased actress

received such honour as actress never received before, nor has ever

received since. The lady lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, a

distinction not unfrequently, indeed, conceded to persons of high

rank and small merit, but which, nevertheless, seemed out of place

in the case of Anne Oldfield; but had she been really a queen, the

public could not have thronged more eagerly to the spectacle.

The solemn lying in state of an English actress in the Jerusalem

Chamber, the sorrow of the public over their lost favourite, and the

regret of friends in noble, or humble, but virtuous homes, where

Mrs. Oldfield had been ever welcome, contrast strongly with the

French sentiment towards French players. It has been already said,

that as long as Clairon exercised the power, when she advanced to

the footlights, to make the (then standing) pit recoil several feet,

by the mere magic of her eyes, the pit, who enjoyed the terror as a

luxury, flung crowns to her, and wept at the thought of losing her;

but Clairon infirm was Clairon forgotten, and to a decaying actor or

actress a French audience is the most merciless in the world. The

brightest and best of them, as with us, died in the service of the

public. Monfleury, Mondory, and Bricourt, died of apoplexy, brought

on by excess of zeal. Molière, who fell in harness, was buried with

less ceremony than some favourite dog. The charming Lecouvreur,

that Oldfield of the French stage, whose beauty and intellect were

the double charm which rendered theatrical France ecstatic, was

hurriedly interred within a saw-pit. Bishops might be exceedingly

interested in, and unepiscopally generous to, living actresses of

wit and beauty, but the prelates smote them with a "Maranatha!" and

an "Avaunt ye!" when dead. Even Bossuet would attend the theatre to

learn grace and elocution from them and their brethren: but when he

had profited by the instruction, he denounced them all as "children

of the devil!" Louis XVIII., however, put an effectual check on the

unseemly practice of treating as dead dogs the geniuses who had been

idolised when living. When the priests of the Church of St. Roch

closed its doors against the body of Rancourt, brought there for a

prayer and a blessing, Paris rose against the insulters; and the

King, moved by Christian charity, or dread of a Paris riot, sent his

own chaplain to recite the prayer, give the benediction, and to show

that an honest player was not a something less than a fellow-creature.

After the lying in state of Mrs. Oldfield, there was a funeral of

as much ceremony as has been observed at the obsequies of many a

queen. Among the supporters of the pall were Lord Hervey, Lord

Delawarr, and Bubb Dodington, afterwards Lord Melcombe. The first

used to ride abroad with Mrs. Oldfield, as Mrs. Delaney has recorded.

Lord Delawarr was a soldier who became a great "beau," and went a

philandering. His wife and the Countess of Burlington headed the

Faustina party at the opera against the faction which supported

Cuzzoni. There were anthems, and prayers, and sermon; and Dr. Parker,

who officiated, remarked, when all was over, to a few particular

friends, and with some equivocation, as it seems to me, that he

"buried her very willingly, and with much satisfaction." Her sons

Maynwaring and Churchill were present, and the contemporary notices

say that she had no other children. Her friends were apt to express

a different opinion; and Mrs. Delaney, in one of the very first

passages in her _Autobiography_ says:--"At six years old I was placed

under the care of Mdlle. Puelle, a refugee of a very respectable

character, and well qualified for her business. She undertook but

twenty scholars at a time, among whom were Lady Catherine Knollys,

daughter to the" (self-styled) "Earl of Banbury, and great aunt

to the present Lord; Miss Halsey, daughter to a very considerable

brewer, and afterwards married to Lord Temple, Earl of Cobham; Lady

Jane Douglas, daughter of the Duke of Douglas, and Miss Dye Bertie, a

daughter of Mrs. Oldfield the actress, who, after leaving school, was

the _pink of fashion_ in the _beau monde_, and married a nobleman."

Whom did this mysterious Diana marry?[2]

This daughter is not mentioned in Mrs. Oldfield's will; but to the

two sons Mrs. Oldfield bequeathed the bulk of a fortune which she

had amassed more by her exertions than by the generosity of their

respective fathers. She was liberal, too, in leaving memorials to

numerous friends; less so in her bequests to old relations of her

sempstress and coffee-house days. A very small annuity was Narcissa's

parting gift to her mother, who long survived her.

In such wise went her money; but whither has the blood of Oldfield

gone? When Winnifred, the dairymaid, married into the family of the

Bickerstaffes, she is said to have spoilt their blood, while she

mended their constitutions. The great actress herself was at least

an honest man's daughter, a man of fair descent. Her son, Colonel

Churchill, once, unconsciously, saved Sir Robert Walpole from

assassination, through the latter riding home, from the House, in the

Colonel's chariot instead of alone in his own. Unstable Churchill

married a natural daughter of Sir Robert, and _their_ daughter Mary

married, in 1777, Charles Sloane, first Earl of Cadogan. The son of

this Mary is the present Earl, the great grandson of charming Anne

Oldfield. When Churchill and his wife were travelling in France, a

Frenchman, knowing he was connected with poets or players, asked him

if he was Churchill the famous poet. "I am not," said Mrs. Oldfield's

son. "Ma foi!" rejoined the polite Frenchman, "so much the worse for

you!"

I have seen many epitaphs to her memory, but there is not one which

is so complete and beautiful as the following, which tells the reader

that she lies amid great poets, not less worthy of praise than

they, whose works she has illustrated and ennobled. It records the

apt universality of her talent, which made her seem not _made_, but

born for whatever she undertook. In tragedy, the glory of her form,

the dignity of her countenance, the majesty of her walk, touched the

rudest spectator. In comedy, her power, her graceful hilarity, her

singular felicity, were so irresistible, that the eyes never wearied

of gazing at her, nor the hands of applauding her.

"Hic juxta requiescit

Tot inter poetarum laudata nomina,

ANNA OLDFIELD.

Nec ipsa minore laude digna,

Quippe quæ eorum opera.

In scenam quotidies prodivit,

Illustravit semper et nobilitavit.

Nunquam ingenium idem ad parties diversissimas

Habilius fuit.

Ita tamen ut ad singulas

Non facta sed nata esse videretur,

In tragoediis

Formæ splendor, oris dignitas, incessus majestas,

Tanta vocis suavitate temperabantur.

Ut nemo esset tam agrestis, tam durus spectator,

Quin in admirationem totus raperetur.

In comoedia autem

Tanta vis, tam venusta hilaritas, tam curiosa felicitas

Ut neque sufficerent spectando oculi,

Neque plaudendo manus."

I have said that her last original part was Sophonisba. Among the

last words she uttered in it, when mortal illness was upon her, were

these:--

"And is the sacred moment then so near,

The moment when yon sun, these heavens, this earth

Shall sink at once, and straight another state,

New scenes, new joys, new faculties, new wonders,

Rise, on a sudden, round?"

These words were first spoken by her, on the last day of February

1730. On the 23rd of the following October she died, in her

forty-seventh year. A week later, Dr. Parker "buried her very

willingly, and with much satisfaction!"

[Illustration: Mrs. Clive as Mrs. Heidelberg.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Her niece.

[2] She married J. Cator.--_Doran MS._

[Illustration: GOODMAN'S FIELDS THEATRE.]

CHAPTER 2. FROM THE DEATH OF ANNE OLDFIELD TO THAT OF WILKS.

Between the season of 1729-30, and that of 1733-34, great changes

took place. It is correct to say, that the stage "declined;" but if

we lose Mrs. Oldfield in the former period, we find some compensation

at the beginning of the latter, by first meeting, in Fielding and

Hippisley's booth, at Bartholomew and Southwark fairs, with one who

was destined to enthral the town,--modest Mrs. Pritchard, playing

Loveit, in a "Cure for Covetousness."

Meanwhile, Mrs. Porter reigned supreme; but the stage was deprived,

for more than a year, of the presence of her whom Mrs. Oldfield loved

to address as "mother," by an accident which dislocated her thigh.

Even after her recovery, the tragedy queen was forced to walk the

stage with a crutched stick, which, like a true artist, she turned to

account in her action.

Of actors of eminence, the greatest whom the stage lost was Wilks,

airy and graceful down to the last;--of him, who died in 1732, I

will speak more fully presently. Death also carried off quaint,

squeaking, little Norris, the excellent comic actor, popularly known

as "Jubilee Dicky." After Norris went Boheme, the pillar of the

Lincoln's Inn Fields, a dignified and accomplished tragedian, whose

Lear was full of antique grandeur and pathos;--it was, perhaps, the

only character in which the former young sailor's quarter-deck walk

was not discernible. Colley Cibber, too, must be reckoned among the

departed, since he retired from the stage, at the end of the season

1732-33, but occasionally returned to it. He was disheartened by the

break-up in the old partnership, and the manifest close of a period

of prosperity. Booth had sold half of his share in the patent to a

rich and silly amateur actor--Highmore. Wilks's widow, who inherited

her husband's share, was represented by attorney; Colley was uneasy

at having to encounter new partners, and he ultimately sold _his_

share to Highmore, for three thousand guineas.

While the stage failed in players, it was not upheld by the poets.

The gentlemen of the inns of court hissed Charles Johnson's "Medea,"

and did not even applaud the satirical allusion contained in it to

Pope. The town was weary of classical pieces. The "Eurydice" of

Mallet--who had been gate-keeper at the Edinburgh High School, and

had picked up learning enough to enable him to efficiently exercise

the office of tutor in the Duke of Montrose's family--fared no

better,[3] despite Mrs. Porter. The piece was as hard and as dry as

granite; but the author thought it had as much pathos as his ballad

of "William and Margaret."

In the prologue, tragedy was especially recommended to the patronage

of ladies, because therein the character of women is exalted; while

in the comedies of the day it was debased. But the epilogue, spoken

by Miss Robinson, in boy's clothes--"born for this dapper age--pert,

short, and clever"--showed that the poet did not much care for the

female character.

Jeffreys' "Merope" had no better success. His cousins of the Chandos

family may have laughed at the young collegian's bathos; but on

the second night there was not audience enough to make a laugh

comfortable; and the curtain did not rise.[4] Critics complained that

all tragic action on our stage turned on love; and Jeffreys contrived

to make three couple of nymphs and swains sigh or swear in this story

of mother and son! "Who could believe," says Voltaire, "that love

could have been introduced into such a story? But, since the times of

Charles II., love has taken possession of the English stage; and one

must acknowledge that no nation in the world has painted that passion

so badly." But Voltaire, you will remember, also said that Shakspeare

was "a savage!"

A Gloucestershire squire, named Tracy, tried his hand on "Periander,"

and failed, though he was guiltless of a false quantity; unlike

Addison's learned friend, Frowde, who tripped in his penultimates,

with the alacrity of Hughes!

It was not altogether because our ancestors were weary of classical

tragedies, that a short, fat, one-eyed, and well-to-do dissenter

and jeweller, of Moorgate Street, reaped such a triumph, with his

modern and domestic tragedy, "George Barnwell." _Mr._ Lillo had

previously written a ballad-opera, "Sylvia;" but now he aimed to show

the hideousness and consequence of vice. "George Barnwell" was first

acted at Drury Lane, at the beginning of the Midsummer holidays of

1731. Theophilus Cibber played the hero; Mrs. Butler, Milwood. The

audience looked for fun, and took the old ballad,--there was the

flutter of a thousand copies in the house, to compare it with the

play. Pope was present, and expressed an opinion that the language

was often too elevated for the personages;[5] and the hearers

thought only of the story as illustrated by Lillo, and every eye was

weeping. It was the first fairly honest attempt made to amend, from

the stage, the vices and weaknesses of mankind; and it certainly,

in some degree, succeeded. It enlisted the sympathies of honest

women. "The distresses of great personages," says a lady, in the

_Gentleman's Magazine_, "have ceased to affect the town," and "none

but a prostitute could find fault with this tragedy." Fault, however,

was found; but the objection was answered in this way;--that "lowness

of action was disallowed in a tragedy, but not lowness of character:

the _circumstances_ here are all important." One critic holds the

story to be improbable; but contemporary journals furnish a parallel.

A mercer's apprentice, who sleeps in his master's shop, admits a

Milwood, who at a later hour refuses to leave, unless he will cut off

satin enough, to make her a robe. Great distress! but, at a happy

moment, a virtuous porter arrives, who, on hearing the circumstances,

and perhaps having seen the tragedy, lays hold of the lady, who had

no more drapery about her than Lady Godiva, claps her into a sack,

carries her off, and shoots her into a cart full of grains, standing

unguarded. The naughty person is suffocated, if I remember rightly;

but the honour of the apprentice is saved!!

"George Barnwell" brought domestic tragedy into fashion, and Charles

Johnson closed his dramatic career with "Coelia, or the perjured

Lover," which was a warning to young ladies. Coelia has a _bad_ and

a _good_ lover,--warring principles! She prefers the former, with

ruin for a consequence. He lodges her in a bagnio, where she is

swept up by the watch, in the arrest of all the inmates, and taken

to Bridewell. Thence her very heavy father takes her home, while

the good lover kills the bad one in a duel; but the latter politely

requests that the avenger will consider Coelia as having been his

lawful wife. The lady, however, dies in her father's arms; the

curtain comes down with a "tag," and then on tripped the epilogue, to

ridicule all those present who were disposed to profit by the moral

of the drama!

Theophilus Cibber's "Lover" was a sort of pendant to the

"Nonjuror,"--Granger being in the habit of going regularly to church,

and daily breaking the ten commandments. The only enjoyment the

audience had,--who fought for or against the piece till blood flowed

abundantly,--was in the epilogue, in which Mrs. Theophilus Cibber

smartly satirised the failings of her lord! The audience relished it

amazingly.

These were the principal novelties of the period about which I am

treating; but I must add, that at the Haymarket, and at Goodman's

Fields, where Giffard had created in Ayliffe Street a commodious

theatre, far superior to the old throwster's shop, which had served

an early dramatic purpose, in Leman Street, sterling old plays,

with operettas and burlesques, were played at irregular seasons.

Fielding especially distinguished and sometimes disgraced himself. He

had not yet struck upon the vein which made him the first and most

philosophical of English novelists; but he rose from his squibs and

farces to the achievement of the "Miser," in itself an adaptation,

but done by a master hand, and with a double result of triumph,--to

the author, and to Griffin, the clergyman's son, who played Lovegold.

There were smaller attempts by smaller men, but these I omit, to

record the failure of Quin in Lear,--a character which it was

temerity to touch, so soon after Boheme had ceased to _be_ the King.

Mills made as great a mistake, when, at nearly sixty, he played for

the first time--Hamlet. The public cared more for the pantomimic

"Harlot's Progress," got up by Theophilus Cibber for Drury Lane,

where this piece, preceded by "George Barnwell," must have been as

edifying to both sexes as going to church,--a result in which Hogarth

had full share with Lillo.

I have noticed the actors departing and departed, and the appearance

in a booth of Mrs. Pritchard, a name yet to be famous and

respected--like Mrs. Betterton's. So during this period I find a

young player, Delane, at Goodman's Fields, who will advance to the

first rank; but also a greater than he, Macklin, quietly playing

any little part given him at Lincoln's Inn Fields, and securing his

firm standing ground by the ability with which he acquitted himself

at that house, when, in 1731, he was suddenly called upon to play

Brazencourt,[6] in Fielding's "Coffee House Politicians." He had only

four lines to speak; but those he spoke so well, that the true actor

was at once discerned. One may fancy the tone and manner in which the

rascal exclaimed:--"I was forced to turn her off for stealing four

of my shirts, two pair of stockings, and my Common Prayer Book."

With such small opportunity, Mr. Maclean, as he was then called, led

up to Shylock and Sir Pertinax Macsycophant!

Macklin was the last of the great actors who played at Lincoln's

Inn Fields; and he did not leave Covent Garden until _after_ the

appearance there of Braham, who was yet among us but yesterday. The

first-named house had never rivalled the success of Drury Lane, but

Rich had gained enough to enable him to build a new house, and the

last play acted in the Fields was Ravenscroft's "Anatomist," one of

the worst of a second-rate author of King Charles's days. This was on

December 5, 1732. Except for a few nights, irregularly, the old house

never opened again. It was the third theatre which had occupied the

site since 1662. In 1756 it was converted into a barrack. As late as

1848, it was Copeland's China Repository, when the old stage door and

passage, through which Quin had so often passed, still existed.

There had been a long expressed desire for a new theatre; that is,

not merely a new edifice, but a new system. The proposal embraced

prospective delights for authors, such as they had hitherto never

dreamed of. In the published prospectus it was stated that actors

and authors should be excluded from the management, which was to be

entrusted to individuals, who, at least, knew as little about it,

namely, men of quality, taste, figure, and of a fortune varying from

ten to twelve hundred pounds. A committee was to be appointed, whose

duty it would be, among others, to provide for the efficient reading

of new plays, and for their being listened to with reverence and

attention. It was calculated that the annual profit of such a theatre

would amount to £3000 a year, and that out of it an annuity of £100

might be set aside for every author who had achieved a certain amount

of success. In the following year, the _Weekly Miscellany_ and the

_Grub Street Journal_ were very eager on the subject of theatrical

reform. The former complained that high comedy and dignified tragedy

had deserted the stage; remarked that plays were not intended for

tradesmen! and denounced pantomimes and harlequinades as infamous.

The Journal was rather practical than reflective. Old Exeter

Change was then to let, and the Journal proposed that it should be

converted into a theatre; adding a suggestion, which required above

a century and a quarter to be carried into realisation, namely, that

a college should be founded for decayed actors. This college was to

form the two wings of the theatre; which wings were to be inhabited

respectively by the _emeriti_ among actors, and destitute actresses,

whose new home was to be within sound of the old stirring echoes

of their joyous days. The direction of the establishment was to be

confided to a competent governor and officers selected from among the

decayed nobility and gentry; and the glory and profit resulting were

calculated at a very high figure indeed!

On one result the _Grub Street_ congratulated itself with unctuous

pride. If the stage were reformed, the universities and inns of

court would supply actors. _Gentlemen_, said the _Grub Street_, with

some arrogance, were reluctant to go among the scamps on the stage.

Then, as for actresses, _Grub_ rudely declared that every charity

school could supply a dozen wenches of more decent education and

character, of better health, brighter youth, more brilliant beauty,

and more exalted genius, than the common run of hussies then on the

stage; and a season's training, he added, would qualify them for

business. This was a hard hit at men, among whom there were many

well born; and at women, who, whatever they lacked, possessed the

happy gifts of health, youth, beauty, and genius; but _Grub Street's_

cynicism was probably founded on the fact, that he was not invited by

the men, nor smiled on by the women.

A reform before the curtain was, however, now as loudly called for

as behind it. One of the greatest grievances complained of this year

was the insolence of the footmen. Occupying their masters' places,

they lolled about with their hats on, talked aloud, were insolent on

rebuke from the audience, and when they withdrew, on their masters'

arrival, to their own gallery, they kept up a continual tumult

there, which rendered their presence intolerable. What with the fine

gentlemen on the stage, and their lacqueys, selected for their size,

personal good looks, or fine hair, in the gallery, the would-be

attentive audience in the pit were driven well nigh to desperation.

Much of this last grievance was amended when Covent Garden Theatre

was opened on the 7th of December 1732. The first piece acted was

Congreve's "Way of the World;" Fainall by Quin, Mirabel by Ryan, who,

with Walker, Hippisley, Milward, Chapman, and Neal, Mrs. Younger,

Mrs. Bullock, and Mrs. Buchanan, formed the principal members of

the company. Gay was not now alive to increase his own and Rich's

fortune in this elegant and well-appointed theatre; but Rich produced

Gay's operatic piece "Achilles," which represented the hero when

lying disguised as a girl. By the treatment of the subject, Gay did

not manifest the innocency to which he laid claim, nor show himself

either in wit a man, or in simplicity a child. Theobald's adaptation

of Webster's "Duchess of Malfy" (Bosola, by Quin; the Duchess, Mrs.

Hallam), brought no credit on "King Log." Generally, indeed, the

novelties were failures, or unimportant. The only incident worth

recording is the debut of Miss Norsa, as Polly. But before greeting

new comers, let us say a word or two of greater than they who have

gone--of Wilks dead, and, by and by, of Cibber withdrawn. The loss of

such actors seemed irreparable; but during this past season there had

been a lad among the audience at either house, who was to excel them

all. Meanwhile, he studied them deeply, and after times showed that

the study had not been profitless to this boy of sixteen, whose name

was David Garrick.

Quin's most brilliant days lay between this period and the ripening

into manhood of this ardent boy. Before we accompany him through that

time of triumph, let us look back at the career of Wilks.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] "Eurydice" was played about thirteen times, and was thought

worthy of revival in 1759.

[4] This is the story told in the _Biographia Dramatica_, but Genest

says "Merope" was acted three times.

[5] Pope said "in a _few_ passages."

[6] Genest doubts this story, and gives very strong grounds for doing

so. Vol. iii. pp. 306-8.

[Illustration: PEG WOFFINGTON.]

CHAPTER 3. ROBERT WILKS.

In Mr. Secretary Southwell's office, in Dublin, there sits the

young son of one of the Pursuivants of the Lord Lieutenant; he is

not writing a _précis_, he is copying out the parts of a play to be

acted in private. His name is Robert Wilks, and the wise folk of

Rathfarnham, near Dublin, where he was born in 1665, shake their

heads and declare that he will come to no good.

The prophecy seemed fulfilled when the Irish wars between James and

William forced him, an unwilling volunteer, into the army of the

latter. As clerk to the camp he is exempt from military duty; but he

tells a good story, sings a good song, and the officers take him for

a very pretty fellow.

Anon, he is back in the old Dublin office. At all stray leisure

hours he may, however, be seen fraternising with the actors. He most

affects one Richards; he hears Richards repeat his parts, and he

speaks the intervening sentences of the other characters. This he

does with such effect that Richards swears he is made for an actor,

and the young Government clerk, fired by the fame of Betterton, is

eager to leap from the stool, which his father considered the basis

of his fortune, and to don sock and buskin.

His old comrades of the camp were then about to vary the monotony

of life at the Castle, by getting up a play to inaugurate the new

theatre, re-opened, like the Temple of Janus, at the restoration

of peace. Judicious and worthy Ashbury was the only professional

player. Young Wilks had privately acted with him as the Colonel in

the "Spanish Friar." Ashbury now offered to play Iago to his Othello,

and the officers were well pleased to meet again with their old

clerk of the camp. The tragedy was acted accordingly. "How were you

pleased?" asked Richards, who thought Wilks took it as a pastime. "I

was pleased with all but myself," answered the Government clerk, who

was thoroughly in earnest.

Wilks had gone through many months of probation, watched by good

Joseph Ashbury, and honest Richards, when one morning the latter

called on the young actor, with an introductory letter to Betterton

in his hand. Wilks accepted the missive with alacrity, bade farewell

to secretaries and managers, and in a brief space of time was sailing

over the waters, from the Pigeon House to Parkgate.

The meeting of Wilks and Betterton, in the graceful costume of those

days, the young actor travel-worn, a little shabby, anxious, and full

of awe; the elder richly attired, kind in manner, his face bright

with intellect, and his figure heightened by the dignity of a lofty

nature and professional triumph, borne with a lofty modesty, is

another subject for a painter.

Betterton instructed the stranger as to the course he should take,

and, accordingly, one bright May morning of 1690,[7] a handsome young

fellow, with a slight Irish accent, presented himself to Christopher

Rich as a light comedian. He was a native of Dublin county, he said,

had left a promising Government clerkship, to try his fortune on

the Irish stage; and, tempted by the renown of Betterton, had come

to London to see the great actor, and to be engaged, if that were

possible, in the same company.

Christopher Rich was no great judge of acting, but he thought

there was something like promise of excellence in the easy and

gentleman-like young fellow; and he consented to engage him for Drury

Lane, at the encouraging salary of fifteen shillings a week, from

which half a crown was to be deducted for instruction in dancing!

This left Wilks twelve and sixpence clear weekly income; and he had

not long been enjoying it, when he married Miss Knapton, daughter of

the Town Clerk of Southampton. Young couple never began life upon

more modest means; but happiness, hard work, and good fortune came of

it.

For a few years, commencing with 1690,[8] Wilks laboured unnoticed,

at Drury Lane, by all save generous Betterton, who seeing the young

actor struggling for fame, with a small salary, and an increasing

family, recommended him to return to Ashbury, the Dublin manager,

who, at Betterton's word, engaged him at £50 a year,[9] and a

clear benefit. "You will be glad to have got him," said Betterton

to Ashbury. "You will be sorry you have lost him," said he, to

Christopher Rich. _Sorry!_ In three or four years more, Rich was

imploring him to return, and offering him Golconda, as salaries

were then understood. But Wilks was now the darling of the Dublin

people, and, at a later period, so universal was the desire to keep

him amongst them, that the Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant, issued a

warrant to prohibit his leaving the kingdom. But, on the other hand,

£4 per week awaited him in London. It was nearly as high a salary

as Betterton's![10] Wilks, however, caring less for the terms than

for the opportunity of satisfying his inordinate thirst for fame,

contrived to escape, with his wife. With them came a disappointed

actor, soon to be a popular dramatist, Farquhar; who, in the year

1699, after opening the season with his "Love and a Bottle," produced

his "Constant Couple," with Wilks as Sir Harry Wildair. On the

night of Wilks's first appearance, in some lines written for him by

Farquhar, and spoken by the _debutant_, the latter said:--

"Void of offence, though not from censure free,

I left a distant isle, too kind to me;"

and confessing a sort of supremacy in the London over the _Dublin_

stage, he added:--

"There I could please, but there my fame must end,

For hither none must come to boast--but mend."

This the young actor did apace. Applauded as the latter had been the

year before, in old parts, the approbation was as nothing compared

with that lavished on him in this his first original character. From

the first recognition of Vizard down to the "tag" with which the

curtain descends, and including even the absurd and unnatural scene

with Angelica, he kept the audience in a condition of intermittent

ecstasy. The piece established his fame, gave a name to Norris, the

frequently mentioned "Jubilee Dicky," and made the fortune of Rich.

It seems to have been played nearly fifty times in the first season.

In its construction and style it is far in advance of the comedies of

Aphra Behn and Ravenscroft; and yet it is irregular; not moral; as

often flippant as witty; improbable, and not really original. Madam

Fickle is to be traced in it, and the denouement, as far as Lurewell

and Standard are concerned, is borrowed from those of Plautus and

Terence.

Wilks, now the great favourite of the town, justified all Betterton's

prognostications. Like Betterton, he was to the end convinced that

he might become more perfect by study and perseverance. Taking the

extant score of judgments recorded of him, I find that Wilks was

careful, judicious, painstaking in the smallest trifles; in comedy

always brilliant, in tragedy always graceful and natural. For zeal,

Cibber had not known his equal for half a century; careful himself,

he allowed no one else to be negligent; so careful, that he would

recite a thousand lines without missing a single word. The result

of all his labour was seen in an ease, and grace, and gaiety which

seemed perfectly spontaneous. His taste in dress was irreproachable;

grave in his attire on the streets, on the stage he was the glass

of fashion. On the stage, even in his last season, after a career

of forty years, he never lost his buoyancy, or his young graces.

From first to last he was perfection in his peculiar line. "Whatever

he did upon the stage," says an eminent critic, quoted by Genest,

"let it be ever so trifling, whether it consisted in putting on his

gloves, or taking out his watch, lolling on his cane, or taking

snuff, every movement was marked by such an ease of breeding and

manner, everything told so strongly the involuntary motion of a

gentleman, that it was impossible to consider the character he

represented in any other light than that of reality; but what was

still more surprising, that person who could thus delight an

audience, from the gaiety and sprightliness of his character, I met

the next day in a street hobbling to a hackney-coach, seemingly so

enfeebled by age and infirmities that I could scarcely believe him to

be the same man."

The grace and bearing of Wilks were accounted of as natural in a man

whose blood was not of the common tap. "His father, Edward Wilks,

Esq., was descended from Judge Wilks, a very eminent lawyer, and

a gentleman of great honour and probity. During the unhappy scene

of our civil wars he raised a troop of horse, at his own expense,

for the service of his royal master." A brother of the judge was in

Monk's army,[11] with the rank of Colonel, and with more of honest

intention than of commonplace discretion. The civil wars took many

a good actor from the stage, but they also contributed the sons and

daughters of many ancient but impoverished families to the foremost

rank among distinguished players. Some of the daughters of these old

and decayed houses thought it no disparagement to wed with these

players, or to take humble office in the theatre. Wilks's first wife,

Miss Knapton, was the daughter of the Town Clerk of Southampton,

and Steward of the New Forest, posts of trust, and, at one time, of

emolument. The Knaptons had been Yorkshire landholders, the estate

being valued at £2000 a year; and now we find one daughter marrying

Wilks, a second espousing Norris, "Jubilee Dicky," and a third, Anne

Knapton, filling the humble office of dresser at Drury Lane, and

probably not much flattered by the legend on the family arms,

"_Meta coronat opus_."

[Illustration: (Robert Wilks)]

The greatest trouble to Wilks during the period he was in management,

arose from the "ladies" of the company. There was especially Mrs.

Rogers, who, on the retirement of Mrs. Barry and Mrs. Bracegirdle,

played the principal serious parts. It was the whim of this lady to

act none but virtuous characters; her prudery would not admit of her

studying others. In the epilogue to the "Triumphs of Virtue," in

which she played the innocent Bellamira, she pronounced with great

effect the lines, addressed to the ladies, for whose smiles, she said,

"I'll pay this duteous gratitude; I'll do

That which the play has done; I'll copy you.

At your own virtue's shrine my vows I'll pay,

And strive to live the character I play."

In this, however, she did not succeed; but Mrs. Rogers congratulated

herself by considering that her failure saved Wilks's life, who, when

a widower, protested that he should die of despair if she refused to

smile upon him; but, as Cibber remarks, Mrs. Rogers "could never be

reduced to marry."

Her ambition was great, for she not only looked on herself as the

successor of Mrs. Barry and Mrs. Bracegirdle; but when the lively

and graceful Mountfort (Mrs. Verbruggen) died, in giving birth to

an infant, Mrs. Rogers aspired to the succession of her parts also.

Wilks, then in power, preferred Mrs. Oldfield. A public clamour

ensued; but, says Victor, somewhat confusedly, "Mr. Wilks soon

reduced this clamour to demonstration, by an experiment of Mrs.

Oldfield and Mrs. Rogers playing the same part, that of Lady Lurewell

in the "Trip to the Jubilee;" but though obstinacy seldom meets

conviction, yet from this equitable trial the tumults in the house

were soon quelled (by public authority), greatly to the honour of Mr.

Wilks. I am," adds the writer, "from my own knowledge, thoroughly

convinced that Mr. Wilks had no other regard for Mrs. Oldfield but

what arose from the excellency of her performances. Mrs. Rogers'

conduct might be censured by some for the earnestness of her passion

towards Mr. Wilks, but in the polite world the fair sex has always

been privileged from scandal."

As great a tumult ensued when Mrs. Oldfield was cast for Andromache,

a character claimed by her rival, who, being refused by Wilks, "she

raised a posse of profligates, fond of tumult and riot, who made such

a commotion in the house, that the Court hearing of it, sent four of

the royal messengers and a strong guard to suppress all disorder."

Cibber laments having "to dismiss an audience of £150 from a

disturbance spirited up by obscure people, who never gave any better

reason for it than it was their fancy to support the idle complaint

of one rival actress against another in their several pretensions to

the chief part in a new tragedy."

A green-room scene, painted by Colley Cibber, reveals to us something

of the shadowy side of Wilks's character, while that of Booth and

Mrs. Oldfield stand out, as it were, "in the sun." Court and city

in 1725 had demanded the revival of Vanbrugh's "Provoked Wife,"

with alterations, to suit the growing taste for refinement. These

alterations had taken something from the sprightliness of the part

of Constant, which Wilks had been accustomed to play, and Cibber

proposed to give it to Booth, for whom its gravity rendered it

suitable. Wilks, who was eager to play every night, at first looked

grave, then frowned; as Cibber hinted, that if he were to play

in every piece, a sudden indisposition on his part might create

embarrassment, he sullenly stirred the fire; but when the chief

manager suggested that as he had accomplished all he could possibly

aim at in his profession, occasional repose would become him more

than unremitting labour, he took Cibber's counsel and Booth's

acquiescence for satire, and retorted with a warmth of indignation

which included some strong expletives not to be found in the best

poets.

Cibber then accused him of inconsistency, and expressed indifference

whether he accepted or rejected the part which he then held in his

hand, and which Wilks at once threw down on the table whereupon the

angry player sate, with crossed arms, and "knocking his heel upon

the floor, as seeming to threaten most when he said least." Booth,

good-naturedly, struck in with a cheerful comment, to the effect

that, "for his part, he saw no such great matter in acting every day,

for he believed it the wholesomest exercise in the world; it kept the

spirits in motion, and always gave _him_ a good stomach."

At this friendly advance Mrs. Oldfield was seen laughing behind her

fan, while Wilks, after a few hesitating remarks, which showed some

little jealousy of Booth, proposed that Mrs. Oldfield should herself

select which of the two she would have play with her. He would be

glad to be excused if she selected another.

"This throwing the negative upon Mrs. Oldfield," says Cibber, "was

indeed a sure way to save himself; which I could not help taking

notice of, by saying, it was making but an ill compliment to the

company, to suppose there was but one man in it fit to play an

ordinary part with her. Here Mrs. Oldfield got up, and turning me

half round, to come forward, said with her usual frankness, 'Pooh!

you are all a parcel of fools to make such a rout about nothing!'

Rightly judging that the person most out of humour would not be more

displeased at her calling us all by the same name."

Finally, Wilks accepted the part, at Mrs. Oldfield's suggestion,

and all went well. Irascible as he was, yet he was more remarkable

for his zeal and industry, for the carefulness with which he

superintended rehearsals, and for the elaborate pains-concealing

labour, which distinguished him on the public stage. Cibber renders

him full measure of justice in this respect, and generously

confesses: "Had _I_ had half his application I still think I might

have shown myself twice the actor that, in my highest state of

favour, I appear to be."

Cibber, indeed, has painted his colleague Wilks with great

elaboration. From Colley we learn that Wilks excelled Powell, and

that hot-headed Powell challenged him to the duello in consequence.

So painstaking was the young Irishman, that in forty years he was

never once forgetful of a single word in any of his parts. "In some

new comedy he happened to complain of a crabbed speech in his part

which, he said, gave him more trouble to study than all the rest of

it had done." The good-natured author cut the whole of the speech

out; but "Wilks thought it such an indignity to his memory that

anything should be thought too hard for it, that he actually made

himself perfect in that speech, though he knew it was never to be

made use of." Cibber praises his sober character, but hints at his

professional conceit, and somewhat overbearing temper; and he calls

him "bustle master-general of the company." If he was jealous and

impatient, "to be employed on the stage was the delight of his life;"

and of his unwearied zeal, unselfishly exercised for the general

good, Cibber cannot speak too highly. Nothing came amiss to Wilks

that was connected with the stage. He even undertook the office of

writing the bills of performance; but he charged £50 a year for the

trouble.

In the plaintive and tender, this light comedian excelled even

Booth, who used to say that Wilks lacked ear and not voice to make a

great tragedian.[12] Wilks's greatest successes were in his friend

Farquhar's heroes,--Sir Harry Wildair, Mirabel, Captain Plume,

and Archer. He played equally well, but with less opportunity for

distinction, the light gentlemen of Cibber's comedies. In Don Felix,

in Mrs. Centlivre's "Wonder," he almost excelled the reputation he

had gained in Sir Harry. "When Wilks dies," Farquhar once remarked,

"Sir Harry may go to the Jubilee." Of the above characters he was

the original representative, as he was of some fourscore others of

less note,--among them Dumont, in "Jane Shore," for which he may be

said to have been cast by Mrs. Oldfield. "Nay!" she cried to him, in

her pretty way; "if you will not be my husband, I will act Alicia, I

protest." And accordingly, the two most brilliant and gleesome actors

of their day, enacted married tribulation, and kept their wreathed

smiles for the crowd which clustered round them at the wings.

Few men ever loved acting for acting's sake more than Wilks. At the

same time, no one ever warned others against it with more serious

urgency. He had a nephew, who was in fair prospect of such good

fortune as could be built up in an attorney's office. How little

the young fellow merited the fortune, and how ill he understood

the duties and advantages of attorneyship he manifested fully, by

a madness for appearing on the stage. No counsel availed against

his resolution; and, in 1714, Wilks despatched him to Dublin, with

a letter to Ashbury, the manager. "He was bred an attorney," wrote

the uncle, despondingly, "but is unhappily fallen in love with that

fickle mistress, the stage; and no arguments can dissuade him from

it. I have refused to give him any countenance, in hopes that time

and experience might cure him; but since I find him determined to

make an attempt somewhere, no one, I am sure, is able to give him

so just a notion of the business as yourself. If you find my nephew

wants either genius or any other necessary qualification, I beg you

will freely tell him his disabilities; and then it is possible he may

be more easily persuaded to return to his friends and business, which

I am informed he understands perfectly well."

Young Wilks proved as poor an actor as he probably was an attorney;

but his uncle received him at Drury Lane, after a year's novitiate

in Dublin, where he played, at first, better "business" than Quin

himself. But he never advanced a step, and died at the age of thirty,

having never obtained above that number of shillings a week. And for

that, he deserted his vocation as an attorney, in the practice of

which he might have gained, if not earned, at a low estimate, twice

that amount in a single morning.

There was a pious young Duke of Orleans, who, to keep a fair

character, was obliged to assume the fashionable vices of his day.

Wilks, with all his love of home, was a fine gentleman among the fine

gentlemen. His appreciation of matrimony was shown by the haste with

which he espoused the widow Fell, daughter of Charles II.'s great

gun-founder, Browne, in April 1715, after losing his first wife in

the previous year. During the first union, he must have trod the

stage with many a heart-ache, while he was exciting hilarity, for

eleven of his children died early, and the airy player was for ever

in mourning. His stepson, Fell, married the granddaughter of William

Penn, and brought his bride to the altar of St. Paul's, Covent

Garden, not to be married, but christened. Wilks and his wife were

the gossips to the pretty quakeress; and the former, probably, never

looked more imposing than when he pronounced the names of the fair

episcopalian,--_Gulielma Maria_.

Betterton used to rusticate in Berkshire; Booth, at Cowley; Cibber,

at Twickenham; his son, at Brook Green. Wilks, too, had his villa at

Isleworth. He is said to have kept a well-regulated and extremely

cheerful home. He had there seen so much of death that we are told he

was always prepared to meet it with decency. His generosity amounted

almost to prodigality. "Few Irish gentlemen," says his biographer,

"are without indigent relatives." Wilks had many, and they never

appealed to him in vain. He died, after a short illness and four

doctors, in September 1732,[13] leaving his share in the Drury Lane

Patent, and what other property he possessed, to his wife. Throughout

his life, I can only find one symptom of regret at having abandoned

the Irish Secretary's office for the stage. "My successor in

Ireland," he once said to Cibber, "made by his post £50,000."

Exceeding benevolence is finely exhibited in an incident connected

with Farquhar. When the latter was near the end of his gay yet

chequered career in 1707,--death, the glory of his last success, and

the thought of his children pressing hard upon him, he wrote this

laconic, but perfectly intelligible, note to Wilks:--"Dear Bob,--I

have not anything to leave thee, to perpetuate my memory, but two

helpless girls; look upon them, sometimes; and think of him that was,

to the last moment of his life, thine,--GEORGE FARQUHAR." Farquhar's

confidence in his friend was like that of La Fontaine, who, having

lost a home, was met in the street by a friend who invited him to

_his_. "I was going there!" said the simple-minded poet. Wilks did

not disappoint Farquhar's expectations.

Wilks could be as modest as he was generous. After playing, for the

first time, the Ghost to Booth's Hamlet,[14] the latter remarked,

"Why, Bob, I thought you were going to knock me down. When I played

the Ghost to Mr. Betterton's Hamlet, awe-stricken as he seemed, I was

still more so of him."

"Mr. Betterton and Mr. Booth," said Wilks, "noble actors, could

always play as they pleased. I can only play to the best of my

ability."[15] Once only do I find Wilks in close connection with

royalty,--namely, when he took, by command, the manuscript of

"George Barnwell" to St. James's, and read that lively tragedy to

Queen Anne.[16] On some like occasion, King William once presented

Booth with five pounds for his reward, but history does not note

the guerdon with which Wilks retired from the presence of "Great

Anna!"[17]

[Illustration: Mr. Clarke as Antonio.]

FOOTNOTES:

[7] All dates regarding Wilks are difficult to determine; but as his

appearance in Othello, previously referred to, took place at the end

of the Irish Revolution--(Hitchcock says in December 1691)--this

date, 1690, must be wrong. Besides, Rich does not seem to have

obtained a footing in the theatre till March 1691.

[8] See previous note.

[9] Chetwood says sixty pounds.

[10] It was apparently the same salary as Betterton's.

[11] Chetwood says that he commanded a troop in the King's army.

[12] In the 2d edition Dr. Doran adds:--"He was not altogether

original; for the _Tatler_, in 1710, advises him to 'wholly forget

Mr. Betterton, for that he failed in no part of Othello but when he

has him in view.' Thomson says of him, as the hero in Sophonisba,

'Whatever was designed as amiable and engaging in Masinissa, shines

out in Mr. Wilks's action.'"

[13] "5 Oct. 1732. Robert Wilks in the Church on the north side of

the north aisle, under the pews Nos. 9 and 10" (_Reg. Burials, St.

Paul, Covent Garden_).--_Doran MS._

[14] This should be "playing _Hamlet_ to Booth's _Ghost_,"

which makes all speculations whether Booth played Hamlet or not

unnecessary. In point of fact, I do not think he ever did.

[15] Dr. Doran adds, in the 2d edition: "A writer in the _Prompter_,

however, says that Booth would have been too solemn for the lighter

parts of Hamlet, 'if he had ever played the character.' Wilks's

Hamlet was good only in the light and gayer portions, and in the

scene in which at Ophelia's feet, Hamlet watches the king, Wilks's

reading was perfection. In 'I say away!--Go on; I'll follow thee!' he

addressed the whole line to the Ghost with a flourish of his sword;

whereas, the first three words should be spoken to the two friends

who struggle to keep him from following the apparition."

[16] Queen Caroline (2d edition).

[17] Caroline Dorothea (2d edition).

[Illustration: GARRICK'S BIRTHPLACE, HEREFORD.]

CHAPTER 4. ENTER GARRICK.

Great was the confusion in, and small the prosperity of, the theatres

after the death of Wilks, and withdrawal of Cibber. Highmore, now

chief patentee, opened Drury; but Theophilus Cibber, with all the

principal Drury Lane performers, except Mrs. Clive (for Miss Raftor

was now the wife of Judge Clive's brother), Mrs. Horton, and Mrs.

Bridgewater,[18] opened the Haymarket against him, under the title

of "Comedians of His Majesty's Revels." Highmore had recourse to

the law to keep the seceders to their engagements, and Harper, a

deserter to the Haymarket, was prosecuted as a stroller; but the law

acquitted him, after solemn discussion. Highmore's chief actor was

Macklin, who first appeared as Captain Brazen, Cibber's old part in

the "Recruiting Officer," and he subsequently played Marplot, Clodio,

Teague, Brass, and similar characters, with success; but he was cast

aside when the companies became reconciled.

There was no other actor of note in the Drury Lane company, where

good actresses were not wanting. Mrs. Clive alone furnished perpetual

sunshine, and Mrs. Horton warmed the thin houses by the glow of her

beauty. No piece of permanent merit was produced, and, sad change in

the Drury Lane annals, the patentee was at a heavy weekly loss.

[Illustration: (Theophilus Cibber)]

On the first night that the seceders opened the Haymarket, 21st

September[19] 1733, with "Love for Love," Mrs. Pritchard played Nell,

in the after-piece ("Devil to Pay"). The _Daily Post_ had already

extolled the "dawning excellence" she had exhibited in a booth, and

prophesied that she would charm the age. She played light comic

parts throughout the season; but her powers as a tragedian do not

seem to have been suspected. Mrs. Pritchard thus entered on her long

and honourable career, a married woman, with a large family, and an

excellent character, which she never tarnished. Cibber's daughter,

Mrs. Charke, played a round of male parts during the same season,[20]

Roderigo, in "Othello," being one of them. In the March of

1734, the seceders closed the Haymarket, and joined the wreck of the

old company at Drury Lane, on which Mrs. Pritchard, like Macklin,

was laid aside for a time. But while those eminent players were

"under a cloud," there appeared Miss Arne, whose voice charmed all

hearers, whose beauty subdued Theophilus Cibber, but who was not yet

recognised as the tragic actress, between whom and Mrs. Pritchard

and Mrs. Yates, critics, and the town generally, were to go mad with

disputation.

Meantime, no new drama was produced at Covent Garden, which lived in

the public memory a month; but Quin shed a glory on the house, and

quite eclipsed the careful, but heavy and decaying actor, Mills, who

aspired to the parts which Booth's death had left unappropriated. In

Macbeth and Othello, Thersites, Cato, Apemantus, and Gonzales, in the

"Mourning Bride," he had at least no living rival. The contest for

superiority had commenced before Booth's death; but Mills was never a

match for Quin, and his name has not been preserved among us as that

of a great actor.

As it is otherwise with Quin, let us recapitulate some details of

his previous career, before we accompany him over that period which

he filled so creditably, till he was rudely shaken by the coming of

Garrick.

The father of James Quin was a barrister of a good Irish family, and

at one time resided in King Street, Covent Garden, where James was

born in 1693. Mrs. Quin happened to be the wife of two husbands.

The first, who had abandoned her, and who, after years of absence,

was supposed to be dead, re-appeared after Quin's birth, and carried

off the boy's mother as his own lawful wife.[21] Thereby, the boy

himself was deprived of his inheritance; the Quin property, which

was considerable, passed to the heir at law, and at the age of

twenty-one, the young man, intelligent but uneducated, his illusions

of being a _squireen_ in Ireland being all dissipated, and being

specially fitted for no vocation, went at once upon the stage. His

time of probation was first spent on the Dublin boards, in 1714,

where he played very small parts with such great propriety, that

in the following year, on the recommendation of Chetwood, the

prompter, he was received, still as a probationer, into the company

then acting at Drury Lane. Booth, Cibber, Mills, and Wilks were the

chief players at that theatre, and the young actor was at least

among noble professors. Among, but not of them, he remained for at

least two seasons, acting the walking gentlemen, and fulfilling

"general utility," without a chance of reaching a higher rank. One

night, however, in 1716, when the run of the revived "Tamerlane"

was threatened with interruption by the sudden illness of the

most ferocious of Bajazets, Quin was induced, most reluctantly on

the foolish fellow's side, to read the part. In doing this with

conscientiousness and judgment, he received such testimonies of

approval, that he made himself master of the words by the following

night, and when the curtain fell, found himself famous. The critics

in the pit, and the fine gentlemen who hung about the stage, united

in acknowledging his merits; the coffee-houses tossed his name about

pleasantly as a novelty, and Mr. Mills paid him the compliment of

speedily getting well.

When Mr. Mills resumed Bajazet, young Quin sank down to the Dervise;

and though, subsequently, his cast of characters was improved, his

patience was so severely tried, that in the succeeding season he

passed over to the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Modestly entering

there in the part of Benducar, in "Don Sebastian,"[22] he at once

established himself in the public favour, and before the close of the

season 1718-19, the chivalry of his Hotspur, the bluntness of his

Clytus, the fire of his Bajazet, the grandeur of his Macbeth, the

calm dignity of his Brutus, the unctuousness of his Falstaff,[23]

the duplicity of his Maskwell, and the coarse comedy of his Sir John

Brute, were circumstances of which the town talked quite as eagerly

as they did of the Quadruple Alliance, and the musket shot which had

slain the royal Swede in the trenches before Frederickshall.

It was Quin's success in Bajazet at Drury Lane that really cost

Bowen his life. I have noticed the subject before, but it will admit

of some further detail. Bowen had taunted Quin with being tame in

Bajazet, and Quin retorted by speaking disparagingly of Bowen in

Jacomo in the "Libertine," preferring Johnson in that part. Bowen

was the more deeply stung as he prided himself on his acting in

Jacomo, and the company agreed with the adverse critic. The quarrel,

commenced by envy, was aggravated by politics. Bowen boasted of his

honesty and consistency, a boast, the worthlessness of which was

speedily shown by Quin's remark, that Bowen had as often drunk the

Duke of Ormond's health as he had refused it. The disputants parted

angrily, only to meet more incensed. They met, on the invitation

of Bowen, and passed from one tavern to another, till they could

find a room which less suited Quin's purpose than that of his irate

companion--that of "fighting it out." Indeed, the younger player

seems to have been hardly aware of his elder's definite purpose; for

when they entered the room Bowen fastened the door, clapped his back

to it, drew his sword, and threatened to run Quin through the body

if he did not out with his rapier and defend himself. Remonstrance

from the latter was of no avail, and he drew simply to keep Bowen

off. But the latter impetuously pressed forward till he ultimately

fell mortally wounded. Before his death, however, which occurred

within three days, he justly and generously took the blame of the

whole transaction upon himself. This, with corroborative evidence,

secured the acquittal of Quin on his trial for manslaughter. So

died poor, foolish Bowen, at the age of fifty-two, leaving a

widow, for whom the public had not sufficient sympathy to render

her "benefit" profitable, and a son, known in the London streets as

"Ragged-and-Tough," and whose exploits, recorded in the _Old Bailey

Calendar_, sent him to the colonies to found in another hemisphere a

line of Bowens more honest and less angry than the latter scions of

the race in England.

This was a transition period, terminated by the coming of Garrick.

Quin passed over to Drury Lane, tempted by the annual £500 offered

by Fleetwood, a wealthy personage, who had purchased the chief share

in the patent. "No actor," said Rich, "is worth more than £300 a

year," and declining to retain Quin at the additional required

outlay, he brought forward a "citizen," named Stephens, to oppose

him. Stephens had caught the exact sound of Booth's cadences and much

of his manner. For a time audiences were delighted, but the magic of

mere imitation soon ceased to attract; and Quin decidedly led the

town in old characters, but with no opportunity yet offered him of

a "creation." Mrs. Clive enchanted her hearers at Drury Lane, while

Mrs. Horton took her beauty and happy assurance to Covent Garden.

A greater than either, Mrs. Pritchard, played mere walking ladies,

and made no step in advance till 1735, when she acted Lady Townley

at the Haymarket. Old Cibber longing again for a smell of the lamps,

and a sound of applause, played a few of his best parts during

this season, and Macklin slowly made progress according to rare

opportunity. Covent Garden chiefly depended on Ryan; but suddenly

lost his services when they could be least spared. He was returning

home, on the 15th of March 1735, when he was shot by a ruffian in

Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, who robbed him of his sword.

"Friend," said the generous actor, who was badly wounded in the face

and jaw-bone, "you have killed me; but I forgive you!" In about six

weeks, however, he was sufficiently recovered to appear again, after

a general sympathy had been shown him, from the Prince of Wales down

to the gallery visitors.

Drury Lane, too, lost, but altogether, an useful actor, Hallam. He

and Macklin had quarrelled about a theatrical wig, and impetuous

Macklin, raising his stick, thrust with it, in such blind fury, that

it penetrated through Hallam's eye to the brain, and the unfortunate

player died the next day. An Old Bailey jury let the rasher, but

grief-stricken man, lightly off under a verdict of "Manslaughter."

From being a Queen of Song, Mrs. Cibber, the second wife of

Theophilus, first took ground as an actress this season,[24] at Drury

Lane, in Aaron Hill's adaptation of Voltaire's "Zara." Mrs. Cibber

was the sister of Dr. Thomas Arne, the composer of "Artaxerxes," and

daughter of an upholsterer in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden.

Handel thought so well of her that he arranged one of his airs in

the "Messiah" expressly to suit her voice. Her ambition, however, was

to be a tragic actress, and Colley Cibber, who had sternly opposed

her marriage with his son, overcome by her winning ways, not only was

reconciled to her, but instructed her in her study for Zara, and some

part of her success was owing to so accomplished a teacher.

Milward played Lusignan, a part in acting which a young actor, named

Bond, overcome by his feelings, died on the stage, while blessing his

children.[25] This occurred at a private theatre, in Great Villiers

Street, where the tragedy was represented, by sanction of the author,

or, as Reed would have it, of the stealer of it from Voltaire. Bond

was not the only actor who died in harness this year. Obese Hulett,

rival of Quin, in Falstaff, proud of the strength of his lungs,

which he was for ever exercising to the terror of those who suddenly

experienced it, in making some extraordinary effort of this sort,

broke a blood-vessel, and straightway died, when only thirty-five

years of age; and he was buried at the expense of his stage-manager,

Giffard, who rented Lincoln's Inn Fields, for awhile, of Rich.

The success of Mrs. Cibber stirred Rich at Covent Garden, and when

she acted Hermione, the old but able Mrs. Porter played the part

against her, at the latter house, as she also did Zara.[26] Mrs.

Horton was opposed to her in the part of Jane Shore.[27] In high

comedy, Mrs. Cibber attempted Indiana, in the "Conscious Lovers,"

and forthwith Covent Garden put up the same piece. But the latter

house was inferior in its company; there was no one there to shed

sunshine like Mrs. Clive. Delane and Walker together were not equal

to Quin. Of novelty, Covent Garden produced nothing. Giffard's young

troop, on the other hand, in the east, and afterwards at Lincoln's

Inn Fields, produced much that was worthless, not excepting another

levy on Voltaire by Hill, in his "Alzira." Indeed, the new authors

of this period were more remarkable than their pieces. Mrs. Cooper,

now forgotten, was the widow of an auctioneer; and Stirling, author

of the "Parricide," is, perhaps, better remembered in Maryland,

where he was a "popular parson," than he is here. What is known

of him here, indeed, is not favourable. When he and Concanen came

together from Ireland, to live by their pens, as political writers,

they tossed up as to the "side" they should take. As it fell to

Concanen to support, and to Stirling to abuse the ministry, the

former was enabled to acquire an ample fortune as Attorney General of

Jamaica, his seventeen years' tenure of which, Matthew owed to the

appreciation of him by the Duke of Newcastle. But Matthew was a wit,

and a gentlemanlike fellow; whereas the Rev. Jack Stirling, whose

"Parricide" was hissed at Goodman's Fields,[28] was an unsuccessful

parson, who did very well for a transatlantic minister.

The Haymarket was open in the spring and summer of 1736, under

Fielding, with his "Great Mogul's Company of Comedians." Fielding,

greatly improved by many failures, found the town in laughter;

and Lillo drowned it in tears. At "Pasquin," that hot, fierce,

hard-hitting, mirth-moving satire, London "screamed," night after

night, for nearly two months; and at the "Fatal Curiosity," that most

heart-rending of domestic dramas, the same London wept as if it had

the tenderest feelings in the world. In it Cibber's daughter, erratic

Mrs. Charke, condescended to play a female part; and Davies, the

bookseller and dramatic historian, the part of her son, young Wilmot.

By such means and appliances did the stage support itself through

this year, in which Mrs. Pritchard is seldom heard of, and Yates and

Woodward are only giving promise of the Sir Bashful Constant and

Mercutio, to come.

And now we reach 1736-7, with Quin especially eminent in Shakspeare's