Chapter III: Preface (3)

_Love Makes a Man_ (1701) is a rather close adaptation of two of Beaumont and Fletcher’s plays,[78] in which Cibber does not pretend to any serious purpose. “For masks, we’ve scandal, and for beaus, French airs.” And yet his moralizing and sentimental tendency cannot be entirely restrained, for when Carlos, the hero of the play, does turn from his books to love, he speaks in a most heightened and sentimental strain. So too the efforts of Louisa to seduce him are met with sentiments of lofty morality which are actuated by his sincere love for Angelina. The Restoration lover would not have hesitated in the slightest degree to enjoy all that Louisa offered and his wife-to-be would have taken it as a matter of course, probably would have joked with her confidante, if not with the hero, on the subject. But with Cibber not only is the attitude concerning this sort of thing changed, but in his alteration he has omitted one incident[79] that would have been a source of great delight to a Restoration audience, and has softened the language throughout, so that the coarseness which marks his original has largely disappeared. No one undergoes a moral reformation, for Louisa has not been evil in her life, and this one unsuccessful effort at seduction cures her. But the play has two characteristics of the sentimental type; it is perfectly moral in action, and it has some expression of sentimental philosophy.

_She Would and She Would Not_ (1702) is probably more in accordance with modern taste than any other play Cibber wrote. In this regard for good taste as well as good morals it is significant of the change in English comedy, and though it is not sentimental, it indicates Cibber’s readiness to adopt and lead the new mode. In its technique it reminds us of the Spanish intrigue plays of Dryden; but it is perfectly moral, and the two lovers do not employ their time, when away from the main business of winning their wives, in carrying on intrigues with other women.

_The Careless Husband_ (acted 1704) is Cibber’s masterpiece in sentimental comedy. In it he has reached greater excellence than in his former plays in plot and in character presentation, and in the ability to make his plot and moral purpose work out consistently and logically. The reformation of Loveless in _Love’s Last Shift_ strikes one as not in keeping with his character; one feels that his relapse[80] is quite the natural thing to happen. In this play, however, the hero’s character is presented from the first in a way that prepares one for the final reformation. In this particular Cibber rises above his contemporaries in comedy.

In _The Careless Husband_ Cibber lays claim to deliberate and serious moral purpose and deals, as he did in his first play, with the reclaiming of a licentious husband by a virtuous wife. Dibdin extravagantly says of it that “it was a school for elegant manners, and an example for honorable actions.” Cibber expresses himself in regard to his purpose, in the dedication, as follows:

“The best criticks have long and justly complain’d, that the
coarseness of most characters in our late Comedies, have been unfit
entertainments for People of Quality, especially the ladies: and
therfore I was long in hopes that some able pen (whose expectation
did not hang upon the profits of success) wou’d generously attempt
to reform the Town into a better taste than the World generally
allows ’em: but nothing of that kind having lately appear’d, that
would give me the opportunity of being wise at another’s expence, I
found it impossible any longer to resist the secret temptation of my
vanity, and so e’en struck the first blow myself: and the event has
now convinc’d me, that whoever sticks closely to Nature, can’t easily
write above the understandings of the Galleries, tho’ at the same
time he may possibly deserve applause of the Boxes.”

But in _The Careless Husband_, in contrast with what he had previously written in this field, the tone of the entire play is moral, not merely that of the fifth act, the play is worked out consistently, and the offensive effect of an incongruous mixture of standards is lacking. It belongs distinctly to the sentimental type, and is the best of the early school.

In the prologue Cibber gives a summary of the kind of characters that should illustrate the moral the comedy writer has as his theme:

“Of all the various Vices of the Age,
And shoals of fools expos’d upon the Stage,
How few are lasht that call for Satire’s rage!
What can you think to see our Plays so full
Of Madmen, Coxcombs, and the drivelling Fool?
Of Cits, of Sharpers, Rakes, and roaring Bullies,
Of Cheats, of Cuckolds, Aldermen and Cullies?
Wou’d not one swear, ’twere taken for a rule,
That Satire’s rod in the Dramatick School,
Was only meant for the incorrigible Fool?
As if too Vice and Folly were confined
To the vile scum alone of human kind,
Creatures a Muse should scorn; such abject trash
Deserves not Satire’s but the Hangman’s lash.

* * * * *

We rather think the persons fit for Plays,
Are those whose birth and education says
They’ve every help that shou’d improve mankind,
Yet still live slaves to a vile tainted mind.”

In this play Cibber continues the general practice of basing dramatic technique upon that of the Restoration drama. We find the same multiplicity of plots, though there is here a material reduction in their number. But here the various plots are more consistently bound together and more logically worked out. The hero is a somewhat refined Restoration character; he has more gentleness and goodness in him, but the course he pursues is typical of the earlier plays in that he is carrying on two amours during the play and at the end he abandons those intrigues; with this difference, however, that the reformation of the hero of _The Careless Husband_ is felt to be permanent.

The love story of Lord Morelove and Lady Betty, which forms the sub-action, is in the best style of the comedy of manners. It, as well as the main action, reminds one in its finished workmanship of the best plays written during the latter part of the preceding century.

There is a distinct effort to teach the advantage of moral living, in the unhappy outcome of the illicit affairs and in the happy outcome of the legitimate. The situation in which Edging and Sir Charles are discovered asleep, which proved too gross for Cibber’s audience, is nevertheless handled in a manner to show disapproval; the Restoration dramatist would have been salacious and humorous. Sir Charles’s feeling of guilt after this scene, however, is an entirely new note.

Some of the characters are stock figures. Lady Betty is the usual coquette, is a Millamant type, but is altogether more human and modern; Lord Foppington is the continuation of Sir Novelty Fashion, whom we recognize as a type which appears in Etherege and Crowne; and Sir Charles, until his reformation, is, in his conduct, the Restoration rake, with, however, distinctly more humanity. His whole-heartedness and inherent honor make one forgive his lapse in conduct.

Other characters indicate a new mode. Lady Easy is a modest, virtuous, capable wife, full of moderation and tact, with the gentleness of the modern ideal woman. She belongs to the patient Griselda type, and her situation, which contains not a little pathos, is handled in a way to gain the sympathy of the audience. This is a new and noteworthy contribution in the direction of the fully developed type of sentimental comedy. Even in spite of Sir Charles’s defection in conduct, we recognize an inherent goodness in his nature. Lord Morelove is the preaching, sentimentalizing type, serious minded and upright, the sort of character that Cibber has presented in Lord Lovemore in _Woman’s Wit_ and Elder Worthy in _Love’s Last Shift_; a character who seldom appears in the Restoration period, or, if he does appear, is ridiculed. In this presentation of a successful lover, lacking in wit and inconstancy, Cibber was not following the convention of the preceding drama, which usually made its heroes witty scamps.

While we still have light banter and raillery, they are primarily used to display character or further the plot, functions which they disregard in the Restoration plays. The theme and its working out not only deal with the reformation of the loose character, but also endeavor to present an admirable example of womanhood who shows a proper fidelity to her husband in spite of all his delinquencies. In the presentation of this high type of character Cibber has again become an innovator and has made a positive contribution to the drama of the period.

In his adaptation of the plays by Dryden[81] in _The Comical Lovers_ (1707) Cibber has not attempted any changes, and the play is of no importance in the development of comedy. It was regarded merely as a revival of Dryden’s work, and was acted along with other old plays during the same season, largely because of an antiquarian interest.

The two plays from which this is made go well together and present something of the best that Dryden did in the line of satiric comedy, and no doubt the social satire was almost as pertinent in Cibber’s time as it had been forty or fifty years earlier.

But the moral standard, which is almost always present, even if in the background, in Cibber’s own plays, is almost entirely lacking here. Celadon expects to be cuckolded, but would rather be cuckolded by Florimel (who reminds one very strongly of Congreve’s Millamant even in the stipulations before their agreement of marriage), than by any one else. So too in the complications in the second story in the play, the moral defections are humorous merely because they are immoral, and there is no disapproval expressed or implied. In Cibber’s own work he may retain his disapproval until the last act, but the moral standard always appears in some way or other, so that this play is essentially uncharacteristic of Cibber’s work.

_The Double Gallant_ (1707) is an adaption of the same sort as _The Comical Lovers_, derived from Restoration plays,[82] but it does have more significance. It is marked by the same general tone of moral irresponsibility and lightness, but without the actual culmination of delinquencies; there is the same raillery, somewhat curtailed, and the hero, as in those plays, involves himself in intrigue with several women at once. There is more respect for morals in the general conduct of the piece. The change is indicated in the handling of the source. Burnaby[83] has made use of what is probably the most notorious and grossest incident in Restoration comedy, Horner’s subterfuge in _The Country Wife_, but has modified some of the elements of the intrigue. Cibber has prevented the successful outcome of the intrigue, and has entirely omitted the unpleasant features.

_The Lady’s Last Stake_ (1707), in the handling of a serious theme, seems the most modern of Cibber’s comedies; it represents almost an approach to the modern problem play in the Lord and Lady Wronglove story and in the theme of the Lord George and Lady Gentle story. It is a fully developed comedy of the sentimental type of this period, with its four acts of intrigue, its reconciliation at the end, and its extremely moral teaching. Cibber makes two statements of his theme, first in the dedication, and then in the prologue. His statement in the dedication is as follows:

“A Play, without a just Moral, is a poor and trivial Undertaking;
and ’tis from the Success of such Pieces, that Mr. Collier was
furnish’d with an advantageous Pretence of laying his unmerciful
Axe to the Root of the Stage. Gaming is a Vice that has undone more
innocent Principles than any one Folly that’s in Fashion; therefore
I chose to expose it to the Fair Sex in its most hideous Form, by
reducing a Woman of honour to stand the presumptuous Addresses of a
Man, whom neither her Virtue nor Inclination would let her have the
least Taste to. Now ’tis not impossible but some Man of Fortune, who
has a handsome Lady, and a great deal of Money to throw away, may,
from this startling hint, think it worth his while to find his Wife
some less hazardous Diversion. If that should ever happen, my end of
writing this Play is answer’d.”

The plot centers around a most lively intrigue, but shows a departure from the Restoration type. Cibber seems to have devised his own plot from observation rather than to have taken it from the work of some one else, though in his characters he shows some imitation of characters in older plays. Miss Notable is a Miss Prue type, but the action of the play preserves her virtue and indicates disapproval of the effort to seduce her. There is a wide difference between this and the course of Congreve’s character who rushes eagerly to her bedroom followed by Tattle.[84] So too in the relations of Lady Wronglove with her husband there enters a new note. Not only does Cibber show her a virtuous woman, but he recognizes the infidelity of the husband as grave enough to merit not only condemnation but punishment; and though he does not carry his story so far as to inflict on him his just deserts, he recognizes the right of the wife to resent Lord Wronglove’s action, although he clearly feels her resentment is unwise. Sir Friendly Moral, who reconciles the various couples, furnishes the somewhat sentimental moralizings, and seems to be the mouthpiece of the author.

One does not waste much sympathy on either Lord or Lady Wronglove in their bickerings, and their reconciliation at the end through the good offices of Sir Friendly is decidedly lacking in probability, in view of the way in which they have been previously presented. This dénouement is brought about by a typical _deus ex machina_ device, in which Sir Friendly, by supplying money to one of the characters, and by using his exceeding wisdom and knowledge with another set of characters, brings about the happy ending. Cibber was not unlike the other late seventeenth and early eighteenth century writers in his inability to bring his plays to a logical and probable conclusion. He was hampered by his theory that the element of surprise should enter into the happy ending, and hence he often seems to feel compelled to introduce a new force very late in the play.

The characters in the main action are somewhat serious and lacking in attractiveness. But those in the comic action, Lord George, Mrs. Conquest, and Miss Notable, are much more lively sources of interest. Miss Notable, as already stated, is a Miss Prue type, though she is probably not to be described as a “silly, awkward country girl.” She is essentially a sophisticated city miss, but her desires and ambitions, as well as some of her ingenuous characteristics, are similar to those of the Miss Prue type. She starts a flirtation with each new man she meets in order to pique the last new man, who in like manner had his turn. The discomfiture of Lord George when Miss Notable avows her love for Mrs. Conquest, who is in the disguise of a man, is very clever.

It is hard to believe that an honorable gentleman, as Sir George is described as being, would cheat at cards even for the purpose of seducing another man’s wife. It is in just such conceptions as this that Cibber’s superficiality is shown, a superficiality which prevented him from writing great drama notwithstanding his knowledge of technical requirements.

In the situations of Lady Gentle and Mrs. Conquest, especially in that of the latter, there is a distinct element of pathos, similar to that in _The Careless Husband_. As in _The Careless Husband_, this pathos is due not merely to the situation, but depends likewise on the nature of the persons presented. In this respect it is superior to the later sentimental comedy, in which the pathos depends more largely on the situation alone.

In its serious elements _The Lady’s Last Stake_ attacks what are without doubt notable human failings, and the dialogue at its best reminds us of some of the best Congrevian sort. But Cibber’s practice as to the happy outcome and his theory that there must be a surprise at the end of a play, have prevented what might have been, in the hands of a more serious and larger minded dramatist, a most important handling of a new theme in a new way.

When he wrote _The Rival Fools_ (1709), Cibber seemed, if one may judge from the prologue, to feel that his efforts for reform were not meeting with sufficient response and appreciation, and therefore tells the audience that

“All sorts of Men and Manners may
From these last Scenes go unreprov’d away.
From late Experience taught, we slight th’ old Rule
Of Profit with Delight: This Play’s--All Fool.”

But though this comedy is not didactic in its purpose, it is morally clean in its action.

In _The Non-Juror_ (1717), a play written with an avowedly political purpose, he cannot avoid moralizing and sentimentality, qualities which appear slightly in the story of Charles, and in the relations of Dr. Wolf to Lady Woodvil and Maria. It cannot be claimed that the play has any important bearing on sentimental comedy, however.

_The Refusal_ (1721) might be called a purified Restoration comedy, without any positive bearing on the sentimentalizing tendency except that it shows the tendency to make the drama more moral.

_The Provoked Husband_ (1728), Cibber’s completion of Vanbrugh’s _A Journey to London_, is typically sentimental in treatment, with the happy ending, the reformation of the vicious, and the true but dull expression of moral sentiments by the serious characters. In it Cibber has departed from Vanbrugh’s original intention by reforming the wife, whom he has preserved as perfectly true to her husband, though unduly given to gambling. In the love affair of Mr. Manly and Lord Townley’s sister we likewise have sentimental treatment, and in the expression of pious thoughts no one could be more prolific than Mr. Manly. In this play Cibber does not strike any note he has not used before; it is merely significant of the permanence of the changed manner of writing in English comedy generally.

In the first plot Cibber has somewhat softened the characters of Vanbrugh’s Lord and Lady Loverule in Lord and Lady Townley, giving to the husband a much less dictatorial and more sentimental and uxorious character. Lady Townley, though she does not show any signs of softer qualities, is made to see the error of her course of late hours and gambling, and undergoes a somewhat improbable but characteristic conversion. Cibber tells us[85] that it had been Vanbrugh’s intention to turn the lady out of doors, as would have been natural and logical, giving to the play a serious interest which it lacks under Cibber’s management.

The characters are shorn of their rough virility in Cibber’s version. Squire Richard is a sort of rough study of the Tony Lumpkin type,--without his wit, however,--but the credit of the portrayal is due to Vanbrugh rather than to Cibber.

While the play is far from lacking in interest and power to amuse, there is a very decided inferiority to Vanbrugh’s play, even in its unfinished and imperfect state. Cibber’s play is a typical sentimental comedy, with its undeserved happy ending, reformation of the vicious, and commonplace expression of sentiment and morals on the part of the serious characters.

Although it does not exhibit any startling new qualities, in its theme attacking the evils of gambling which Cibber has previously attacked, the play is a good example of eighteenth century comedy; fully as good, indeed, as the work of the other dramatists of the time, but suffering in comparison with Cibber’s own best work.

It may be interesting to note that Cibber is said to have added the parts of Tom and Phillis to Steele’s _Conscious Lovers_.[86] When Steele submitted this play to him, Cibber felt that it would not satisfy the desire of an audience to laugh at a comedy. According to the account in _The Lives of the Poets_, Steele gladly accepted Cibber’s suggestion that a comic action be inserted and even proposed that Cibber make such additions to the play as he saw fit. The absence of humor is a mark of the form of sentimental comedy inaugurated by Steele, while the form represented by Cibber’s work is closer to the Restoration type, is indeed really a modification of that type, and the element of humor is consequently found in it.

8. TYPICAL QUALITY OF CIBBER’S WORK.

Cibber’s work typifies the change that was going on in the moral reformation of the drama, as it likewise shows the development characteristic of the time in other elements of the drama.[87] In him, as in others, we see that while the general type of Restoration comedy was adopted in the construction of the plot, there was a tendency to simplify the plot. Moreover, Cibber further departed from the Restoration type by the selection of themes other than mere sex relations. Other dramatists were able to present such themes without reference to moral degeneration, but Cibber, when he takes such a subject as the dangers of gambling, for instance, cannot entirely avoid dealing with sex immorality.

In the dull, chaste lover, the sober, moral, worthy gentleman who is largely a result of the sentimental tendency in the drama, such as Lord Morelove in _Woman’s Wit_ and Elder Worthy in _Love’s Last Shift_, Cibber developed and made more important a type which had appeared but had been relatively unimportant in earlier drama. In the comedy of Steele and his followers this character was further developed so that it became the central figure. Cibber and his predecessors seem to have been guided by some such formula as that interesting personality and morality appear in inverse ratio in male characters.

The precocious Miss Prue type, the young woman who is destined to have a lover or a husband, perhaps both, in a short time, is represented by Miss Jenny in _The Provoked Husband_ _and_ Miss Notable in _The Lady’s Last Stake_. This type of character soon disappeared from the drama, as did likewise the Millamant kind of coquette, who appears as Maria in _The Non-Juror_ and as Lady Betty in _The Careless Husband_. Snap and Trappanti are typical menservants, witty and graceless, and we find the mercenary serving woman in _The Provoked Husband_ and _She Would and She Would Not_. Characters of this type continue occasionally in the succeeding drama, where they furnish the comic relief.

9. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CIBBER’S COMEDIES.

Cibber’s themes are taken from contemporary life and its more obvious problems. Of course so far as any serious purpose is concerned, a distinction must be made between those plays designed merely to afford the pleasure of an evening’s entertainment and those written with more serious intent. Cibber often distinguishes between these two classes, and frankly states his purpose in the prologue or dedication to the separate plays.

His attitude toward his audience is somewhat naïve. He frankly states that his “sole dependence being the judgment of an audience, ’twere madness to provoke them.”[88] He again says[89] that “every guest is a judge of his own palate; and a poet ought no more to impose good sense upon the galleries, than dull farce upon undisputed judges. I first considered who my guests were, before I prepared my entertainment.” This would seem to indicate that at times he had no high respect for his audiences; especially when he wrote _The School Boy_ and _Hob in the Well_, if the latter is by him. In this connection one may note that he consciously distinguished stage and closet drama, and made no attempt to write the latter. In his “Remarks to the Reader” of _Ximena_ he says, “though the reader must be charmed by the tenderness of the characters in the original, I have ventured to alter, to make them more agreeable to the spectator.” These statements would seem to indicate that Cibber wrote his sentimental plays because he thought the audiences desired something of the sort.

As a playwright Cibber was a strong upholder of religion and the established church. He points out that the only religious sect to close the theatre was also opposed to the established church.[90] But in treating religious subjects he does not use the Puritans for dramatic material, for they were no longer a political menace, but he turns to the Roman Catholics, whose activities were not merely religious, but political. In _The Non-Juror_ we have a play almost entirely built on anti-Catholic feeling; in _King John_ we have another attack on the Church of Rome; and in the fourth act of _Woman’s Wit_ we again have satire, but in this case primarily of the Catholic clergy, rather than the church itself. We do not have any references to party politics, aside from this Catholic problem.

His original plays in comedy, other than farces and operas, deal with moral problems. In the case of _Love’s Last Shift_ and _The Careless Husband_ we have presented the reformation of husbands not yet entirely spoiled at heart; in _The Provoked Husband_ the reformation of a wife who has not committed any serious breach of the moral code; and in this last, as well as in _The Lady’s Last Stake_, we have plays dealing with the evils resulting from women’s gambling. It is curious to find one who was so notorious a gambler as Cibber choosing such a theme.

The language shows great change from that of the Restoration in regard to moral refinement. Cibber’s plays become less and less coarse in speech. His earlier plays have a grossness almost equal to that of Restoration comedy, but gradually grow purer. This change in the language is found in English comedy generally, and as it progresses a new element enters, the expression of moral sentiments, extravagantly and artificially stated. This last shows a gradual increase, reaching its height in the later sentimental comedy of the middle of the century.

Merely as literature, three of Cibber’s plays, at least, are well worth while: _The Careless Husband_, _She Would and She Would Not_, and _The Non-Juror_. They lack the briskness and sureness of touch that characterized Congreve, but compare most favorably with the work of men in the next rank, and are not only delightful and profitable reading, but are thoroughly representative of the period in which they appear. Grouped with these as possessing permanent literary value are the _Apology_ and not more than half a dozen songs. Outside of these three plays, one prose work, and a few songs, Cibber produced nothing that is worth preserving because of its merit as literature. His greatest importance to the student of literary history lies in his contribution to the development of sentimental comedy.

10. PLACE OF STEELE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SENTIMENTAL COMEDY.

In view of the place that is always given to Steele as the originator of sentimental comedy, a discussion of any phase of the subject would be incomplete without at least a reference to his relation to the particular question under discussion. We may grant that Cibber does not represent the culmination of the sentimental type: that is to be found in Steele’s _Conscious Lovers_ (1722). He is, rather, the most prominent figure in the first stage of the development of sentimental comedy, during which the Restoration type was transformed by the addition of a moral purpose, by the purification of the language, and by the addition of the pathetic element; so that the new form in his hands has much of the old as well as the new, while Steele’s _Conscious Lovers_ has almost entirely broken away from the old and looks forward. But the movement in which Cibber was so prominent a figure did make the way possible and contributed the most important elements which later developed in the hands of Steele and his followers.

A commonplace of literary history is that it was Steele who purged English comedy of its vileness and was the first to write sentimental comedy. This, as we have seen, is not true; for though _The Conscious Lovers_ is probably the best of its type, it merely lays more stress upon the pathetic element and carries forward another step the sort of thing that Cibber had done in such comedies as _The Careless Husband_ and _The Lady’s Last Stake_, which are as truly sentimental comedies as this, and which possess the pathetic interest, but in a less marked degree. In Steele’s other plays, _The Funeral_ (1701), _The Lying Lover_ (1705), _The Tender Husband_ (1705), Steele, except in the matter of the purity of the language, does not show as fully developed examples of the type as does Cibber in his work of the same period and earlier.

Steele’s first play to be acted, _The Funeral_, lacks sentimental quality; it is merely a comedy which, when compared to the Restoration type, has a higher moral tone. Steele had no higher motive, he tells us, in writing this play than the purpose of reinstating himself in the opinion of his fellow soldiers who had ostracized him as a moral prig after the appearance of _The Christian Hero_ (1701). In his preface he mentions two themes as those around which the comedy is written, namely, the practices of undertakers and “legal villanies.” Lady Brumpton, who had bigamously married Lord Brumpton, is discredited by being ejected from Lord Brumpton’s household, but there is no suggestion that she is in any way reformed, and in the rest of the action none of the other elements of sentimental comedy are prominent.

_The Lying Lover_ goes a little further and reforms the hero at the end, as is done in the comedies of Cibber. But even this similarity is only superficial, for the hero is not really vicious, being guilty only of some entertaining lying, and the reformation is brought about, not by approved sentimental feminine means, but by the fact that the hero finds himself in prison. But even though the hero is humiliated by temporary imprisonment, his delinquencies are so diverting that the reader is entirely in sympathy with him. Our sympathy for him, indeed, is so great that it is a distinct disappointment that the lady is given to the honest and jealous lover instead of to him. Steele lays no claim to originality in the reform, “compunction and remorse” of his hero, for in his preface he says that such things had been “frequently applauded on the stage.” Nor is the versifying of the elevated portions of the play a new thing; it is found both earlier and later than sentimental comedy and is not a distinctive mark of that type.

_The Tender Husband_ was indebted to Cibber’s _Careless Husband_, which had recently appeared, but is not to be compared to it in its sentimental qualities. In both plays, however, we have the reconciliation of an estranged husband and wife. In Cibber it is the husband who is the offender, and he is recalled from his vices by the patient fidelity of his wife; a reformation based on sentiment. In _The Tender Husband_, the wife is reformed from extravagance in her expenditure of time and money on trivialities, and from failure in her duty to her husband, but the reformation is brought about by a mere trick that the husband plays upon the wife rather than by the interaction of personality on personality. Steele shows nothing of the serious grasp of the situation that Cibber shows in his play on the same theme, _The Provoked Husband_. Steele’s handling is distinctly less artistic and distinctly less sentimental than in either of Cibber’s plays. This is seen also in Steele’s light treatment of the wife’s equivocal action toward Fainlove, whom she mistakenly supposes to be a man, and toward whom she makes questionable advances. Not only in regard to such situations as this, but in the attitude toward actual breaches of morality, Steele shows a lower standard than Cibber. In both _The Careless Husband_ and _The Tender Husband_ the hero keeps a mistress, but while Cibber brings the illicit amour to an end with the disgrace of the mistress and a distinct moral, Steele not only shows none of this disapproval but provides the mistress with a husband of means and gives her a good dowry.

Seventeen years later, though according to Genest[91] the play had been written some years before it was acted, Steele produced his fully developed comedy of the sentimental type, _The Conscious Lovers_. It is entirely different from the preceding plays, for instead of containing a lively intrigue with clever satire and wit, such as we have in _The Lying Lover_, the tone throughout is fixed by the pathetic and didactic elements. Steele rightly felt that he was doing something new, and took credit to himself in the prologue:

“But the bold sage--the poet of tonight--
By new and desperate rules resolved to write.

* * * * *

’Tis yours with breeding to refine the age,
To chasten wit, and moralise the stage.”

Not only does this moral and sentimental note appear throughout, but in Mr. Sealand, especially in his dialogue with Sir John Bevil in the fourth act, there appears the exaltation of the tradesman class which culminated in the work of Lillo. Bevil Junior is a pattern of propriety and goodness, but his lack of virility and brilliance contrasts him most disadvantageously with the heroes of the preceding period. He is the dull, chaste lover, the hero of the second intrigue of the Restoration and Cibber type of comedy, the Lord Morelove sort, exalted to the first place. Indiana is the patient Griselda type, the Lady Easy sort of person, but in _The Conscious Lovers_ her gentleness and goodness are not used to recall the erring, but are presented merely as desirable qualities for a virtuous young woman to possess. The witty rake has disappeared. The Wildairs, Lovelesses, Millamants, and Lady Betties are no more, and in their places are maudlin, sickly sentimentalists, whose goodness and sufferings are all that commend them. Parson Adams was right, it does contain “some things almost solemn enough for a sermon.”

This sentimental didacticism becomes still more conspicious in the work of Holcroft and his school, whose plays are rendered degenerate and emasculate thereby. If the historians of literature mean that Steele was the originator of this type, whose essential characteristic is the centering of the action around a pathetic situation, they are probably right; but any statement that it was he who introduced the sentimental or pathetic element into English comedy, or that he began the reformation of the drama in the direction of morality, is easily seen to be false by a comparison of his work with the earlier and contemporary work of Cibber.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. CIBBER’S WORKS.

_Prose._

An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, Comedian, and Late
Patentee of the Theatre-Royal. With an Historical View of the Stage
during his Own Time. Written by Himself. London, 1740. (I have used
the fourth edition, London, 1756. Best edition is that of Lowe,
London, 1889.)

A Letter from Mr. Cibber, to Mr. Pope, Inquiring into the Motives
that might induce him in his Satyrical Works, to be so frequently
fond of Mr. Cibber’s Name. London, 1742.

The Egoist: or, Colley upon Cibber. Being his own Picture
Retouch’d, to so plain a Likeness, that no One, now, would have the
Face to own it, but Himself. London, 1743.

Another Occasional Letter from Mr. Cibber to Mr. Pope. Wherein the
New Hero’s Preferment to his Throne, in the _Dunciad_, seems not to
be Accepted. And the Author of that Poem His more rightful Claim to
it, is Asserted. With an Expostulatory Address to the Reverend Mr. W.
W............n, Author of the new Preface, and Adviser in the curious
Improvements of that Satire. By Mr. Colley Cibber. London, 1744.

The Character and Conduct of Cicero, Considered from the History of
his Life by the Reverend Dr. Middleton. With Occasional Essays and
Observations upon the most memorable Facts and Persons during that
Period. London, 1747.

The Lady’s Lecture, a Theatrical Dialogue, between Sir Charles Easy
and his Marriageable Daughter. Being an Attempt to Engage Obedience
by Filial Liberty: and to Give the Maiden Conduct of Virtue,
Chearfulness. By C. Cibber, Esq: Servant to his Majesty. London, 1748.

_Non-Dramatic Poetry._

Gentleman’s Magazine. London, 1731--

London Magazine. London, 1732--

A Rhapsody on the Marvellous: Arising from the First Odes of Horace
and Pindar. Being a Scrutiny into Ancient Poetical Fame, demanded by
Modern Common Sense. By Colley Cibber, Esq. P. L.

Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped:
Which they have since preserved by being dead. Dryden.
. . . . . . . liberius si
Dixero quid, si forte jocosius, hoc mihi juris
Cum venia dabis. Hor. Sat. 4. L 1. London, 1751.

_Dramatic Works._

(_Arranged in the order of stage presentation. The dates are those of
publication._)

Collected editions of his Plays appeared in 1721, in two volumes;
in 1636, in five volumes; in 1760, in four volumes; in 1777, in five
volumes. The last named is the edition I have used.

Love’s Last Shift; or, The Fool in Fashion. 1696.

Woman’s Wit; or, The Lady in Fashion. 1697.

Xerxes. 1699.

The Tragical History of Richard III, altered from Shakespear. 1700.

Love Makes a Man; or, The Fop’s Fortune. 1701.

She Would and She Would Not; or, The Kind Impostor. 1703.

The Careless Husband. 1705.

Perolla and Izadora. 1706.

The Comical Lovers. 1707.

The School Boy; or, The Comical Rival. 1707.

The Double Gallant; or, The Sick Lady’s Cure. 1707.

The Lady’s Last Stake; or, The Wife’s Resentment. 1708.

The Rival Fools. 1709.

The Rival Queans, with the Humours of Alexander the Great, a
Comical-tragedy. Dublin, 1729.

Ximena; or, The Heroick Daughter. 1718.

Cinna’s Conspiracy. 1713.

Venus and Adonis. A Masque. 1715.

Myrtillo, a Pastoral Interlude. 1716.

The Non-Juror. 1718.

The Refusal; or, The Ladies Philosophy. 1721.

Caesar in Aegypt. 1725.

The Provok’d Husband; or, A Journey to London. 1728.

Love in a Riddle. A Pastoral. 1729 [misprinted 1719].

Damon and Phillida; a Ballad Opera. 1729.

Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John. 1745.

2. GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Actor, The, or, A Treatise on the Art of Playing. London, 1750.

Age of Dullness, The, a Satire. By a Natural Son of Mr. Pope. London,
1757.

Baker, D. E., I. Reed and S. Jones. Biographica Dramatica. London,
1812.

Beaumont and Fletcher. Works. London, 1843.

Besser, R. Colley Cibbers The Double Gallant und seine Quellen.
Halle, 1903.

Betterton, T. The History of the English Stage, from the Restoration
to the Present Time. London, 1741.

Betterton, Thomas, Life and Times of. Reprint, London, 1888.

Blast upon Bays, A; or, A New Lick at the Laureat. London, 1742.

Booth, Barton, Life of. London, 1733.

Boyle, Roger, Earl of Orrery. Parthenissa. London, 1676.

British Theatre, The. London. 1750.

Brown, Hawkins. A Pipe of Tobacco. London, 1744.

Burnaby, C. The Reformed Wife. London, 1700.

Burnaby, C. The Ladies Visiting Day. London, 1701.

Canfield, Dorothea Frances. Corneille and Racine in England. New
York, 1904.

Carlile, J. The Fortune Hunters; or, Two Fools Well Met. London, 1689.

Case of the Present Theatrical Dispute Fairly Stated, The. London,
1743.

Centlivre, Susanna. Dramatic Works. Reprint, London, 1872.

Charke, Charlotte. A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Charlotte Charke.
Written by Herself. London, 1755; reprint, London, 1827.

Chetwood, W. R. General History of the Stage. London, 1749.

Cibber, Theophilus, editor. Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and
Ireland. London, 1753.

Cibber, Theophilus. Two Dissertations on the Theatres. London, 1756.

Corneille, Pierre. Oeuvres. Paris, 1862.

Crowne, John. Dramatic Works, in _Dramatists of the Restoration_, ed.
by Maidment and Logan. Edinburgh, 1873.

Davies, T. Dramatic Miscellanies. London, 1784.

Davies, T. Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, Esq. Third ed.,
London, 1781.

Difference between Verbal and Practical Virtue, The. London, 1742.

Dogget, T. The Country Wake. London, 1696.

Dohse, R. Colley Cibbers Bühnenbearbeitung von Shakespeares Richard
III. Bonn, 1897.

Doran, J. Their Majesties’ Servants. London, 1888.

Downes, J. Roscius Anglicanus. London, 1708; reprint, London, 1886.

Dryden, John. Works. London, 1889.

Egerton, T. and J. The Theatrical Remembrancer. London, 1788.

Fielding, Henry. Historical Register for 1736. Works, London, 1852.

Fielding, Henry (?). An Apology for the Life of Mr. T.... C....
London, 1740.

Genest, J. Some Account of the English Stage from the Restoration in
1660 to 1830. Bath, 1832.

Granger, J. Biographical History of England. London, 1779-1806.

Hermann, A. Colley Cibbers Tragicomedy Ximena und ihr Verhältniss zu
Corneilles Cid. Kiel, 1908.

Hutton, Laurence. Literary Landmarks of London. Boston, 1885.

Jacob, G. The Poetical Register. London, 1719-1723.

Johnson, T. Tryal of Colley Cibber for Writing a Book Intitled An
Apology for his Life. London, 1740.

Kilbourne, F. W. Alterations and Adaptations of Shakespeare. Boston,
1906.

Köppe, K. Das Verhältniss von Cibbers Papal Tyranny zu Shakespeares
King John. Halle, 1902.

Krüger, W. Das Verhältniss von Colley Cibbers Lustspiel The Comical
Lovers zu J. Drydens Marriage à la Mode und Secret Love. Halle,
1902.

Laureat, The; or, The Right Side of Colley Cibber, Esq. To Which is
Added, The History of the Life, Manners and Writings of Aesopus the
Tragedian. London, 1740.

Learned, J. The Counterfeits. London, 1679.

Lee, W. L. M. History of Police in England. London, 1901.

Letter to Mr. C....b....r, A, on his Letter to Mr. P........ London,
1742.

Lounsbury, Thomas R. Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist. New York, 1901.

Lowe, R. W. A Bibliographical Account of English Theatrical
Literature. London, 1888.

Macaulay, T. B. History of England. Boston, 1900.

Man of Taste, The. London, 1733.

Marks, Jeannette. The English Pastoral Drama. London, 1908.

Medbourne, M. Tartuffe. London, 1670.

Michels, E. Quellenstudien zu Colley Cibbers Lustspiel The Careless
Husband. Marburg, 1908.

Miles, D. H. The Influence of Molière on Restoration Comedy. New
York, 1910.

Molière. Oeuvres. Paris, 1873-1900.

Molière. Dramatic Works, translated by H. Van Laun. Edinburgh, 1878.

Molloy, J. F. Famous Plays. London, 1886.

Mountfort, W. Greenwich Park, a Comedy. London, n. d. [1691].

New Theatrical Dictionary. London, 1742.

Nichols, J. Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth
Century. London, 1817.

Nichols, J. Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century. London,
1815.

Ost, G. Das Verhältniss von Cibbers Lustspiel Love Makes a Man zu
Fletchers Dramen, The Elder Brother und The Custom of the Country.

Pepys, Samuel. Diary. London, 1897.

Philips, Katherine. Poems. London, 1669.

Pilkington, L. Memoirs. London, 1748.

Quin, Mr. James, Comedian, Life of. London, 1766; reprint, 1887.

Rowe, N. Pharsalia. London, 1718.

Sanger, W. W. History of Prostitution. New York, 1899.

Schneider, W. Das Verhältniss von Colley Cibbers Lustspiel The
Non-Juror zu Malias Tartuffe. Halle, 1903.

Shakspere, William. Richard III, Variorum edition, ed. by H. H.
Furness, Jr. Philadelphia, 1908.

Steele, Richard, and John Dennis. The Theatre, by Sir Richard Steele;
to which are added, the Anti-Theatre; the Character of Sir John
Edgar; Steele’s Case with the Lord Chamberlain. Illustrated with
Literary and Historical Anecdotes by John Nichols. London, 1791.

Stone, E. Chronicles of Fashion. London, 1845.

Stoye, M. Das Verhältniss von Cibbers Tragödie Caesar in Egypt zu
Fletchers The False One. Halle, 1897.

Strickland, Agnes. Queens of England. New York, 1851.

Temple of Dullness, The, with the Humours of Signor Capochio and
Signora Dorinna; A Comic Opera in Two Acts. London, 1745.

Theatrical Correspondence in Death. An Epistle from Mrs. Oldfield, in
the Shades, to Mrs. Br. ceg....dle, upon Earth. London, 1743.

Theobald, L. The Happy Captive, an English Opera, with an Interlude,
in Two Comick Scenes, betwixt Signor Capochio, a Director from the
Canary Islands; and Signora Dorinna. London, 1741.

Thorndike, Ashley H. Tragedy. Boston, 1908.

To diabebouloumenon; or, The Proceedings at the Theatre Royal in
Drury Lane. London, 1722.

Tönse, L. Cibbers Comedy The Refusal in ihrem Verhältniss zu Molières
les Femmes savantes. Kiel, 1900.

Traill, H. D. Social England. New York, 1902.

Vanbrugh, John. Works, ed. by W. C. Ward. London, 1893.

Victor, B. History of the Theatres of London and Dublin from 1730 to
the Present Time. London, 1761.

Waterhouse, O. The Development of Sentimental Comedy in the
Eighteenth Century, _Anglia_, XXX.

Whincop, T. Scanderbeg; or, Love and Liberty. London, 1747.

Wilkes, T. A General View of the Stage. London, 1759.

Wilks, Robert, Esq., The Life of that Eminent Comedian. London, 1733.

Woman of Taste. London, 1733

Wood, A. I. P. Stage History of Shakespeare’s Richard III. New York,
1909.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] II. 573.

[2] Whincop, _Complete List of All the English Dramatic Poets_, p. 199. See also the dramatic list appended to the second volume of the fourth edition of the _Apology_, p. 286.

[3] The sub-plot of _Woman’s Wit_ was likewise acted separately after the original play had failed on the stage.

[4] Reprint of 1887, p. 28.

[5] Page 28.

[6] _Apology_, I, 180.

[7] III, 325.

[8] The _Advertisement_ prefixed to _The Happy Captive_ says: “The interlude, which is added in two comic scenes, is entirely new to our climate; and the success of it is submitted to experiment, and the taste of the audience.” Only this portion of _The Happy Captive_ was ever acted.

[9] Theobald died September 18, 1744. _The Temple of Dullness_ was acted January 17, 1745.

[10] For a history of the pastoral drama in the eighteenth century and a summary of its qualities, see Jeannette Marks, _The English Pastoral Drama_, London, 1908.

[11] Thorndike, _Tragedy_, p. 273.

[12] Davies, _Dramatic Miscellanies_, III, 459.

[13] _The Tatler_, Number 42, July 16, 1709.

[14] _Address to the Reader_, prefixed to _Ximena_.

[15] Richard Dohse, _Colley Cibber’s Buehnenarbeitung von Shakspere’s Richard III_, Bonn, 1899.

[16] Alice I. Perry Wood, _The Stage History of Richard III_, New York, 1909.

[17] The number and sources of the lines as given by Furness. _Variorum Richard III_, p. 604, are as follows: _Richard II_, 14; _1 Henry IV_, 6; _2 Henry IV_, 20; _Henry V_, 24; _1 Henry VI_, 5; _2 Henry VI_, 17; _3 Henry VI_, 103; _Richard III_, 795; Cibber, 1069; total, 2053. The number of lines in the Globe text of Shakspere’s _Richard III_ is 3621.

[18] As “God” to “Heaven,” I, ii, 236; due in this instance to the Collier influence.

[19] Edition of 1665, pp. 102-157.

[20] _Dedication_ of _Perolla and Izadora_.

[21] Genest, II, 506.

[22] _To the Reader_, _Ximena_.

[23] See Canfield, _Corneille and Racine in England_, p. 169.

[24] Genest, II, 511; and Canfield, _op. cit._, pp. 179 ff.

[25] II, 104.

[26] VIII, 204.

“Mr. Cibber.

1701 Nov. 8 A Third of Love’s Last Shift 3 4 6
1705 Nov. 14 Perolla and Izadora 36 11 0
1707 Oct. 27 Double Gallant 16 2 6
Nov. 22 Lady’s Last Stake 32 5 0
Feb. 26 Venus and Adonis 5 7 6
1708 Oct. 9 Comical Lover 10 15 0
1712 Mar. 16 Cinna’s Conspiracy 13 0 0
1718 Oct. 1 The Nonjuror 105 0 0

No price or date.
Mrytillo, A pastoral,
Rival Fools,
Heroic Daughter,
Wit at Several Weapons.”

[27] Although acted six times it could not be considered extremely successful. According to Genest, III, 162, Nichols speaks of having made merry with a party of friends over the pasteboard swans, on the first night of its production.

[28] III, 161.

[29] _Das Verhaeltniss von Cibber’s Tragoedie Caesar in Egypt zu Fletcher’s The False One._

[30] _Op. cit._, p. 223.

[31] Cibber no doubt used Rowe’s translation (1710).

[32] Compare, for instance, the general idea of the exposition In Act I.

[33] Lucan ends before this incident, but Rowe continues the narrative, using the same material as _The False One_.

[34] Genest. IV, 146, says that it had not been acted since 1695, though he records the performances in 1737 and 1738.

[35] It is to be noted that efforts were made to deprive Cibber of credit for his work not only in this play but also in _The Non-Juror_ and _The Refusal_.

[36] _The History of the Theatres of London and Dublin_, II, 49.

[37] Davies, _Dramatic Miscellanies_, I, 5. For a characteristic example of the criticism to which Cibber was subjected, see Fielding’s _Historical Register for the Year 1736_, Act III.

[38] For full discussion of the relationship between Cibber’s _Richard III_ and Shakspere’s _Richard III_, see A. I. P. Wood, and Dohse. The whole subject of Shaksperian alterations is taken up in Lounsbury’s _Shakspere as a Dramatic Artist_, and in Kilbourne’s _Alterations and Adaptations of Shakspere_. It is curious that Lounsbury does not discuss Cibber’s _Richard III_, which is not only the most famous Shaksperian alteration but the only one of any real value.

[39] The addition of parts from _3 Henry VI_ at the beginning of the play.

[40] _Tragedy_, VIII and IX.

[41] See especially throughout _Ximena_.

[42] According to _The Life of Aesopus_, this “was said to be a silly tale collected from some dreaming romance,” but as the writer does not give the title of this romance and apparently had no knowledge of the play, his testimony is of no value.

[43] “The furious John Dennis, who hated Cibber for obstructing, as he imagined, the progress of his tragedy, called _The Invader of His Country_, in very passionate terms denies his claim to this comedy: ‘When _The Fool in Fashion_ was first acted,’ says the critic, ‘Cibber was hardly twenty-two years of age; how could he, at the age of twenty, write a comedy with a just design, distinguished characters, and a proper dialogue who now, at forty, treats us with Hibernian sense and Hibernian English?’” Davies, _Dramatic Miscellanies_, III, 410.

[44] Jacob, _Poetical Register_, p. 38, suggests Otway’s _Dare Devil_ (that is, _The Atheist_) as the source of the play, but it would take a vivid imagination to see the connection.

[45] _Das Verhaeltniss von Cibber’s Lustspiel Love Makes a Man zu Fletcher’s Dramen The Elder Brother und The Custom of The Country_, p. 82.

[46] It was acted in New York, January 15, 1883, by Miss Ada Rehan, under the management of Augustin Daly. See Lowe, _Apology_, II, 289. Genest records, VI, 23, that when it was performed at Covent Garden in 1778, “the applause was so strong in the second act, that the performers were obliged to stop for some time.”

[47] This translation of three French novels, whose original source had been Spanish, was issued again in 1712 as _Three Ingenious Spanish Novels_. See Chandler, _Romances of Roguery_, New York, 1899, pp. 462-3. These novels are ultimately based on _La Garduna de Sevilla_ of Castillo Solorzano. It is also to be noticed that the story appears in _La Villana de Ballecas_ by Tirso de Molina, in _La Ocasion hace al ladron_, by Moreto, and in the story of Aurora in Le Sage’s _Gil Blas_. Dunlop, _History of Prose Fiction_, II, 475, states that _She Would and She Would Not_ is taken from _Gil Blas_. _Gil Blas_ was published thirteen years later than Cibber’s play.

[48] Wilkes, _General View of the Stage_, p. 40, says that were the play curtailed of one scene he “would not fail to pronounce it not only the best comedy in English, but in any other language.”

[49] Boswell’s _Johnson_, edited by G. Birkbeck Hill, London, 1891; I, 201.

[50] Preface to _The Double Gallant_.

[51] II, 173.

[52] _Apology_, I, 243.

[53] III, 209. See also Thomes Whincop’s _Scanderbeg_, (1747), p. 195. An account of the lives and writings of the English dramatists is annexed to this play.

[54] Following the Scottish rebellion in 1715, Lord Derwentwater and Lord Kenmure were executed, February 24, 1716. The king’s pardon, which excepted forty-seven classes of offenders, appears in _The Historical Register_ for 1717, II, 247; so that the excitement caused by the rebellion continued for some time. Doran’s _London in Jacobite Times_ discusses this period in a most interesting manner.

[55] The second title of _The Female Virtuosoes_.

[56] _Apology_, II, 58.

[57] _Preface_ to _The Good Natured Man_.

[58] See, for example, _Steele and The Sentimental Comedy_, by M. E. Hare, in _Eighteenth Century Literature, An Oxford Miscellany_, Oxford, 1909. This speaks of “Sentimental Comedy invented by the great essayist Sir Richard Steele.”

[59] Macaulay, _History of England_, Chapter VII.

[60] During the reign of Charles not every one had been in entire sympathy with the state of the theatre. Evelyn, in a letter to Viscount Carnbury, February 9, 1664-1665, in speaking of the acting of plays on Saturday evenings says: “Plays are now with us become a licentious excess, and a vice, and need severe censors that should look as well to their morality as to their lines and numbers.”

[61] Traill, _Social England_, IV. 593.

[62] _The Laureat_, p. 53. “I can remember, that soon after the publication of Collier’s book, several informations were brought against the players, at the instance and at the expense of the Society for the Reformation of Manners, for immoral words and expressions, _contra bonos mores_, uttered on the stage. Several informers were placed in the pit, and other parts of the house, to note down the words spoke, and by whom, to be able to swear to them and many of them would have been ruined by these troublesome prosecutions, had not Queen Anne, well satisfied that these informers lived upon their oaths, and that what they did, proceeded not from conscience, but from interest, by a timely _nolle prosequi_, put an end to the inquisition.”