Chapter XII: Appendix: Theatrical Claptrap

(_What Addison has to say about it in the "Spectator_")

No. 44. FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1711.

"Tu quid ego, et populus mecum desideret, audi."
HOR. ARS POET. ver. 153.

"Now hear what ev'ry auditor expects."
ROSCOMMON.

Among the several artifices which are put in practice by the poets to fill the minds of an audience with terror, the first place is due to thunder and lightning, which are often made use of at the descending of a god, or the rising of a ghost, at the vanishing of a devil, or at the death of a tyrant. I have known a bell introduced into several tragedies with good effect; and have seen the whole assembly in a very great alarm all the while it has been ringing. But there is nothing which delights and terrifies our English theatre so much as a ghost, especially when he appears in a bloody shirt. A spectre has very often saved a play, though he has done nothing but stalked across the stage, or rose through a cleft of it, and sunk again without speaking one word. There may be a proper season for these several terrors; and when they only come in as aids and assistances to the poet, they are not only to be excused, but to be applauded. Thus the sounding of the clock in "Venice Preserved" makes the hearts of the whole audience quake, and conveys a stronger terror to the mind than it is possible for words to do. The appearance of the ghost in "Hamlet" is a masterpiece in its kind, and wrought up with all the circumstances that can create either attention or horror. The mind of the reader is wonderfully prepared for his reception by the discourses that precede it. His dumb behaviour at his first entrance strikes the imagination very strongly; but every time he enters he is still more terrifying. Who can read the speech with which young Hamlet accosts him without trembling?

"_Hor_. Look, my Lord, it comes!

"_Ham_. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd;
Bring with thee airs from heav'n, or blasts from hell;
Be thy events wicked or charitable;
Thou com'st in such a questionable shape
That I will speak to thee. I'll call thee Hamlet,
King, Father, Royal Dane. Oh I answer me.
Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell
Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements? Why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws
To cast thee up again? What may this mean?
That thou dead corse again in complete steel
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous?"

I do not therefore find fault with the artifices above mentioned, when they are introduced with skill and accompanied by proportionable sentiments and expressions in the writings.

For the moving of pity our principal machine is the handkerchief; and indeed in our common tragedies we should not know very often that the persons are in distress by anything they say, if they did not from time to time apply their handkerchiefs to their eyes. Far be it from me to think of banishing this instrument of sorrow from the stage; I know a tragedy could not subsist without it: all that I would contend for is to keep it from being misapplied. In a word, I would have the actor's tongue sympathise with his eyes.

A disconsolate mother, with a child in her hand, has frequently drawn compassion from the audience, and has therefore gained a place in several tragedies. A modern writer, that observed how this had took in other plays, being resolved to double the distress, and melt his audience twice as much as those before him had done, brought a princess upon the stage with a little boy in one hand and a girl in the other. This too had a very good effect. A third poet being resolved to outwrite all his predecessors, a few years ago introduced three children with great success: and, as I am informed, a young gentleman, who is fully determined to break the most obdurate hearts, has a tragedy by him where the first person that appears upon the stage is an afflicted widow in her mourning weeds, with half a dozen fatherless children attending her, like those that usually hang about the figure of Charity. Thus several incidents that are beautiful in a good writer become ridiculous by falling into the hands of a bad one.

But among all our methods of moving pity or terror, there is none so absurd and barbarous, and which more exposes us to the contempt and ridicule of our neighbours, than that dreadful butchering of one another, which is very frequent upon the English stage. To delight in seeing men stabbed, poisoned, racked, or impaled is certainly the sign of a cruel temper; and as this is often practised before the British audience, several French critics, who think these are grateful spectacles to us, take occasion from them to represent us as a people who delight in blood. It is indeed very odd to see our stage strewed with carcasses in the last scenes of a tragedy; and to observe in the wardrobe of the playhouse several daggers, poniards, wheels, bowls for poison, and many other instruments of death. Murders and executions are always transacted behind the scenes in the French theatre, which in general is very agreeable to the manners of a polite and civilised people; but as there are no exceptions to this rule on the French stage, it leads them into absurdities almost as ridiculous as that which falls under our present censure. I remember in the famous play of Corneille, written upon the subject of the Horatii and Curiatii, the fierce young hero, who had overcome the Curiatii one after another (instead of being congratulated by his sister for his victory, being upbraided by her for having slain her lover), in the height of his passion and resentment kills her. If anything could extenuate so brutal an action, it would be the doing of it on a sudden, before the sentiments of nature, reason, or manhood could take place in him. However, to avoid public bloodshed, as soon as his passion is wrought to its height, he follows his sister the whole length of the stage, and forbears killing her till they are both withdrawn behind the scenes. I must confess, had he murdered her before the audience, the indecency might have been greater; but as it is, it appears very unnatural, and looks like killing in cold blood. To give my opinion upon this case, the fact ought not to have been represented, but to have been told if there was any occasion for it.

It may not be unacceptable to the reader to see how Sophocles has conducted a tragedy under the like delicate circumstance. Orestes was in the same condition with Hamlet in Shakespeare, his mother having murdered his father and taken possession of his kingdom in conspiracy with her adulterer. That young prince, therefore, being determined to revenge his father's death upon those who filled his throne, conveys himself by a beautiful stratagem into his mother's apartment, with a resolution to kill her. But because such a spectacle would have been too shocking to the audience, this dreadful resolution is executed behind the scenes. The mother is heard calling to her son for mercy, and the son answering her that she showed no mercy to his father; after which she shrieks out that she is wounded, and by what follows we find that she is slain. I do not remember that in any of our plays there are speeches made behind the scenes, though there are other instances of this nature to be met with in those of the ancients: and I believe my reader will agree with me that there is something infinitely more affecting in this dreadful dialogue between the mother and her son behind the scenes than could have been in anything transacted before the audience. Orestes immediately after meets the usurper at the entrance of his palace; and by a very happy thought of the poet avoids killing him before the audience, by telling him that he should live some time in his present bitterness of soul before he would despatch him, and by ordering him to retire into that part of the palace where he had slain his father, whose murder he would revenge in the very same place where it was committed. By this means the poet observes that decency, which Horace afterwards established as a rule, of forbearing to commit parricides or unnatural murders before the audience.

"Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet,"
ARS POET. ver. 185.

"Let not Medea draw her murd'ring knife,
And spill her children's blood upon the stage."
ROSCOMMON.

The French have therefore refined too much upon Horace's rule, who never designed to banish all kinds of death from the stage; but only such as had too much horror in them, and which would have a better effect upon the audience when transacted behind the scenes. I would therefore recommend to my countrymen the practice of the ancient poets, who were very sparing of their public executions, and rather chose to perform them behind the scenes, if it could be done with as great an effect upon the audience. At the same time, I must observe, that though the devoted persons of the tragedy were seldom slain before the audience, which has generally something ridiculous in it, their bodies were often produced after their death, which has always in it something melancholy or terrifying; so that the killing on the stage does not seem to have been avoided only as an indecency, but also as an improbability.

"Nec pueros coram populo Medea trucidet:
Aut humana palam coquat exta nefarius Atreus;
Aut in avem Progne vertatur, Cadmus in anguem.
Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi."
HOR. ARS. POET. ver. 185.

"Medea must not draw her murd'ring knife,
Nor Atreus there his horrid feast prepare;
Cadmus and Progne's metamorphoses
(She to a swallow turn'd, he to a snake);
And whatsoever contradicts my sense,
I hate to see, and never can believe."
ROSCOMMON.

I have now gone through the several dramatic inventions which are made use of by the ignorant poets to supply the place of tragedy, and by the skilful to improve it; some of which I could wish entirely rejected, and the rest to be used with caution. It would be an endless task to consider comedy in the same light, and to mention the innumerable shifts that small wits put in practice to raise a laugh. Bullock in a short coat, and Norris in a long one, seldom failed of this effect.[A] In ordinary comedies a broad and a narrow brimmed hat are different characters. Sometimes the wit of a scene lies in a shoulder-belt, and sometimes in a pair of whiskers. A lover running about the stage, with his head peeping out of a barrel, was thought a very good jest in King Charles the Second's time, and invented by one of the first wits of the age.[B] But because ridicule is not so delicate as compassion, and because the objects that make us laugh are infinitely more numerous than those that make us weep, there is a much greater latitude for comic than tragic artifices, and by consequence a much greater indulgence to be allowed them.

[Footnote A: Addison's comment about these two favourite comedians shows that then, as now, eccentricity in dress formed a popular species of stage humour.]

[Footnote B: Sir George Etherege, in his comedy of "The Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub."]

COMIC EPILOGUES

_(From the "Spectator")_

No. 338. FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1712.

"Nil fuit unquam
Sic dispar sibi."
HOR. SAT. III. 1-1-18.

"Made up of nought but inconsistencies."

I find the tragedy of the "Distressed Mother" is published to-day. The author of the prologue,[A] I suppose pleads an old excuse I have read somewhere, of "being dull with design;" and the gentleman who writ the epilogue[B] has, to my knowledge, so much of greater moment to value himself upon, that he will easily forgive me for publishing the exceptions made against gaiety at the end of serious entertainments in the following letter: I should be more unwilling to pardon him, than anybody, a practice which cannot have any ill consequence, but from the abilities of the person who is guilty of it.

[Footnote A: Steele.]

[Footnote B: Addison credited Budgell with the epilogue.]

"MR. SPECTATOR,--I had the happiness the other night of sitting very near you, and your worthy friend Sir Roger, at the acting of the new tragedy, which you have in a late paper or two so justly recommended. I was highly pleased with the advantageous situation fortune had given me in placing me so near two gentlemen, from one of which I was sure to hear such reflections on the several incidents of the play as pure nature suggested; and from the other, such as flowed from the exactest art and judgment; though I must confess that my curiosity led me so much to observe the knight's reflections that I was not so well at leisure to improve myself by yours. Nature, I found, played her part in the knight pretty well, till at the last concluding lines she entirely forsook him. You must know, Sir, that it is always my custom, when I have been well entertained at a new tragedy, to make my retreat before the facetious epilogue enters; not but that those pieces are often very well writ, but having paid down my half-crown, and made a fair purchase of as much of the pleasing melancholy as the poet's art can afford me, or my own nature admit of, I am willing to carry some of it home with me; and cannot endure to be at once tricked out of all, though by the wittiest dexterity in the world. However, I kept my seat the other night, in hopes of finding my own sentiments of this matter favoured by your friend's; when, to my great surprise, I found the knight, entering with equal pleasure into both parts, and as much satisfied with Mrs. Oldfield's gaiety, as he had been before with Andromache's greatness. Whether this were no more than an effect of the knight's peculiar humanity, pleased to find at last, that, after all the tragical doings, everything was safe and well, I do not know. But for my own part, I must confess I was so dissatisfied, that I was sorry the poet had saved Andromache, and could heartily have wished that he had left her stone-dead upon the stage. For you cannot imagine, Mr. Spectator, the mischief she was reserved to do me. I found my soul, during the action, gradually worked up to the highest pitch; and felt the exalted passion which all generous minds conceive at the sight of virtue in distress. The impression, believe me, Sir, was so strong upon me, that I am persuaded, if I had been let alone in it, I could at an extremity have ventured to defend yourself and Sir Roger against half a score of the fiercest Mohocks; but the ludicrous epilogue in the close extinguished all my ardour, and made me look upon all such noble achievements as downright silly and romantic. What the rest of the audience felt, I cannot so well tell. For myself I must declare, that at the end of the play I found my soul uniform, and all of a piece; but at the end of the epilogue, it was so jumbled together and divided between jest and earnest, that, if you will forgive me an extravagant fancy, I will here set it down. I could not but fancy, if my soul had at that moment quitted my body, and descended to the poetical shades in the posture it was then in, what a strange figure it would have made among them. They would not have known what to have made of my motley spectre, half comic and half tragic, all over resembling a ridiculous face, that, at the same time, laughs on one side, and cries on the other. The only defence, I think, I have ever heard made for this, as it seems to me the most unnatural tack of the comic tail to the tragic head, is this, that the minds of the audience must be refreshed, and gentlemen and ladies not sent away to their own homes with too dismal and melancholy thoughts about them: for who knows the consequence of this? We are much obliged indeed to poets for the great tenderness they express for the safety of our persons, and heartily thank them for it. But if that be all, pray, good Sir, assure them, that we are none of us like to come to any great harm; and that, let them do their best, we shall, in all probability, live out the length of our days, and frequent the theatres more than ever. What makes me more desirous to have some reformation of this matter is, because of an ill consequence or two attending it: for a great many of our church musicians being related to the theatre, they have, in imitation of these epilogues, introduced in their farewell voluntaries, a sort of music quite foreign to the design of church-services, to the great prejudice of well-disposed people. Those fingering gentlemen should be informed, that they ought to suit their airs to the place and business; and that the musician is obliged to keep to the text as much as the preacher. For want of this, I have found by experience a great deal of mischief. For when the preacher has often, with great piety, and art enough, handled his subject, and the judicious clerk has with the utmost diligence called out two staves proper to the discourse, and I have found in myself, and in the rest of the pew, good thoughts and dispositions, they have been all in a moment dissipated by a merry jig from the organ loft. One knows not what further ill effects the epilogues I have been speaking of may in time produce: but this I am credibly informed of, that Paul Lorrain[A] has resolved upon a very sudden reformation in his tragical dramas; and that, at the next monthly performance, he designs, instead of a penitential psalm, to dismiss his audience with an excellent new ballad of his own composing. Pray, Sir, do what you can to put a stop to these growing evils, and you will very much oblige your humble servant,

"PHYSIBULUS."

[Footnote A: At that time ordinary of Newgate; and who, in his accounts of the convicts executed at Tyburn, generally represented them as true penitents, and dying very well.]

No. 341. TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 1712.

"--Revocate animos, maestumque timorem
Mittite--"
VIRG. AEN.I. 206.

"Resume your courage, and dismiss your care."
DRYDEN.

Having, to oblige my correspondent Physibulus, printed his letter last Friday, in relation to the new epilogue, he cannot take it amiss, if I now publish another, which I have just received from a gentleman who does not agree with him in his sentiments upon that matter.

"Sir,--I am amazed to find an epilogue attacked in your last Friday's paper, which has been so generally applauded by the town, and received such honours as were never before given to any in an English theatre.

"The audience would not permit Mrs. Oldfield to go off the stage the first night till she had repeated it twice; the second night the noise of _ancora_ was as loud as before, and she was again obliged to speak it twice; the third night it was called for a second time; and, in short, contrary to all other epilogues, which are dropped after the third representation of the play, this has already been repeated nine times.

"I must own I am the more surprised to find this censure, in opposition to the whole town, in a paper which has hitherto been famous for the candour of its criticisms.

"I can by no means allow your melancholy correspondent, that the new epilogue is unnatural, because it is gay. If I had a mind to be learned, I could tell him that the prologue and epilogue were real parts of the ancient tragedy; but every one knows, that on the British stage, they are distinct performances by themselves, pieces entirely detached from the play, and no way essential to it.

"The moment the play ends, Mrs. Oldfield is no more Andromache, but Mrs. Oldfield; and though the poet had left Andromache stone-dead upon the stage, as your ingenious correspondent phrases it, Mrs. Oldfield might still have spoke a merry epilogue. We have an instance of this in a tragedy where there is not only a death, but a martyrdom.[A] St. Catherine was there personated by Nell Gwyn; she lies stone-dead upon the stage, but, upon those gentlemen's offering to remove her body, whose business it is to carry off the slain in our English tragedies, she breaks out into that abrupt beginning of what was a very ludicrous, but at the same time thought a very good epilogue:--

"'Hold: are you mad? you damn'd confounded dog!
I am to rise and speak the epilogue.'

[Footnote A: "Tyrannic Love; or, the Royal Martyr." By Dryden.]

"This diverting manner was always practised by Mr. Dryden, who, if he was not the best writer of tragedies in his time, was allowed by every one to have the happiest turn for a prologue or an epilogue. The epilogues to 'Cleomenes,' 'Don Sebastian,' the 'Duke of Guise,' 'Aurengezebe,' and 'Love Triumphant,' are all precedents of this nature.

"I might further justify this practice by that excellent epilogue which was spoken, a few years since, after the tragedy of 'Phaedra and Hippolitus;'[A] with a great many others, in which the authors have endeavoured to make the audience merry. If they have not all succeeded so well as the writer of this, they have however shown that it was not for want of good will.

[Footnote A: By Edmund Neal.]

"I must further observe, that the gaiety of it may be still the more proper, as it is at the end of a French play; since every one knows that nation, who are generally esteemed to have as polite a taste as any in Europe, always close their tragic entertainments with what they call a _petite pièce_, which is purposely designed to raise mirth, and send away the audience well pleased. The same person who has supported the chief character in the tragedy, very often plays the principal part in the _petite pièce_; so that I have myself seen, at Paris, Orestes and Lubin acted the same night by the same man.

"Tragi-comedy, indeed, you have yourself, in a former speculation, found fault with very justly, because it breaks the tide of the passions, while they are yet flowing; but this is nothing at all to the present case, where they have already had their full course.

"As the new epilogue is written conformably to the practice of our best poets, so it is not such an one, which, as the Duke of Buckingham says in his 'Rehearsal,' might serve for any other play; but wholly rises out of the occurrences of the piece it was composed for.

"The only reason your mournful correspondent gives against this facetious epilogue, as he calls it, is, that he has a mind to go home melancholy. I wish the gentleman may not be more grave than wise. For my own part, I must confess, I think it very sufficient to have the anguish of a fictitious piece remain upon me while it is representing; but I love to be sent home to bed in a good humour. If Physibulus is however resolved to be inconsolable, and not to have his tears dried up, he need only continue his old custom, and when he has had his half-crown's worth of sorrow, slink out before the epilogue begins.

"It is pleasant enough to hear this tragical genius complaining of the great mischief Andromache had done him. What was that? Why, she made him laugh. The poor gentleman's sufferings put me in mind of Harlequin's case, who was tickled to death. He tells us soon after, through a small mistake of sorrow for rage, that during the whole action he was so very sorry, that he thinks he could have attacked half a score of the fiercest Mohawks in the excess of his grief. I cannot but look upon it as a happy accident, that a man who is so bloody-minded in his affliction, was diverted from this fit of outrageous melancholy. The valour of this gentleman in his distress brings to one's memory the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance, who lays about him at such an unmerciful rate in an old romance. I shall readily grant him that his soul, as he himself says, would have made a very ridiculous figure, had it quitted the body and descended to the poetical shades in such an encounter.

"As to his conceit of tacking a tragic head with a comic tail, in order to refresh the audience, it is such a piece of jargon, that I don't know what to make of it.

"The elegant writer makes a very sudden transition from the playhouse to the church, and from thence to the gallows.

"As for what relates to the church, he is of opinion that these epilogues have given occasion to those merry jigs from the organ-loft, which have dissipated those good thoughts and dispositions he has found in himself, and the rest of the pew, upon the singing of two staves culled out by the judicious and diligent clerk.

"He fetches his next thought from Tyburn; and seems very apprehensive lest there should happen any innovations in the tragedies of his friend Paul Lorrain.

"In the mean time, Sir, this gloomy writer, who is so mightily scandalised at a gay epilogue after a serious play, speaking of the fate of those unhappy wretches who are condemned to suffer an ignominious death by the justice of our laws, endeavours to make the reader merry on so improper an occasion by those poor burlesque expressions of tragical dramas and monthly performances.--I am, Sir, with great respect, your most obedient, most humble servant,

"PHILOMEDES."

ON DRAMATIC CRITICS

(_Addison in the "Spectator_")

No. 592. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1714.

"--Studium sine divite veni."
HOR. ARS POET. 409.

"Art without a vein."
ROSCOMMON.

I look upon the playhouse as a world within itself. They have lately furnished the middle region of it with a new set of meteors, in order to give the sublime to many modern tragedies. I was there last winter at the first rehearsal of the new thunder,[A] which is much more deep and sonorous than any hitherto made use of. They have a Salmonus behind the scenes who plays it off with great success. Their lightnings are made to flash more briskly than heretofore; their clouds are also better furbelowed, and more voluminous; not to mention a violent storm locked up in a great chest, that is designed for the "Tempest." They are also provided with above a dozen showers of snow, which, as I am informed, are the plays of many unsuccessful poets artificially cut and shredded for that use. Mr. Rymer's "Edgar" is to fall in snow, at the next acting of "King Lear," in order to heighten, or rather to alleviate, the distress of that unfortunate prince; and to serve by way of decoration to a piece which that great critic has written against.

[Footnote A: Mr. Dennis's new and approved method of making thunder. Dennis had contrived this thunder for the advantage of his tragedy of "Appius and Virginia"; the players highly approved of it, and it is the same that is used at the present day. Notwithstanding the effect of this thunder, however, the play was coldy received, and laid aside. Some nights after, Dennis being in the pit at the representation of "Macbeth," and hearing the thunder made use of, arose from his seat in a violent passion, exclaiming with an oath, that that was his thunder. "See (said he) how these rascals use me: they will not let my play run, and yet they steal my thunder."--"Notes on the _Spectator_."]

I do not indeed wonder that the actors should be such professed enemies to those among our nation who are commonly known by the name of critics, since it is a rule among these gentlemen to fall upon a play, not because it is ill written, but because it takes. Several of them lay it down as a maxim, that whatever dramatic performance has a long run, must of necessity be good for nothing; as though the first precept in poetry were "not to please." Whether this rule holds good or not, I shall leave to the determination of those who are better judges than myself; if it does, I am sure it tends very much to the honour of those gentlemen who have established it; few of their pieces having been disgraced by a run of three days, and most of them being so exquisitely written, that the town would never give them more than one night's hearing.

I have great esteem for a true critic, such as Aristotle and Longinus among the Greeks; Horace and Quintilian among the Romans; Boileau and Dacier among the French. But it is our misfortune, that some, who set up for professed critics among us, are so stupid, that they do not know how to put ten words together with elegance or common propriety; and withal so illiterate, that they have no taste of the learned languages, and therefore criticise upon old authors only at second hand. They judge of them by what others have written, and not by any notions they have of the authors themselves. The words unity, action, sentiment and diction, pronounced with an air of authority, give them a figure among unlearned readers, who are apt to believe they are very deep because they are unintelligible. The ancient critics are full of the praises of their contemporaries; they discover beauties which escaped the observation of the vulgar, and very often find out reasons for palliating and excusing such little slips and oversights as were committed in the writings of eminent authors. On the contrary, most of the smatterers in criticism, who appear among us, make it their business to vilify and depreciate every new production that gains applause, to descry imaginary blemishes, and to prove, by farfetched arguments, that what pass for beauties in any celebrated piece are faults and errors. In short, the writings of these critics, compared with those of the ancients, are like the works of the sophists compared with those of the old philosophers.

Envy and cavil are the natural fruits of laziness and ignorance; which was probably the reason that in the heathen mythology Momus is said to be the son of Nox and Somnus, of darkness and sleep. Idle men, who have not been at the pains to accomplish or distinguish themselves, are very apt to detract from others; as ignorant men are very subject to decry those beauties in a celebrated work which they have not eyes to discover. Many of our sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the name of critics, are the genuine descendants of these two illustrious ancestors. They are often led into these numerous absurdities in which they daily instruct the people, by not considering that, first, there is sometimes a greater judgment shown in deviating from the rules of art than in adhering to them; and, secondly, that there is more beauty in the works of a great genius, who is ignorant of all the rules of art, than in the works of a little genius, who not only knows but scrupulously observes them.

First, we may often take notice of men who are perfectly acquainted with all the rules of good writing, and notwithstanding choose to depart from them on extraordinary occasions. I could give instances out of all the tragic writers of antiquity who have shown their judgment in this particular; and purposely receded from an established rule of the drama, when it has made way for a much higher beauty than the observation of such a rule would have been. Those who have surveyed the noblest pieces of architecture and statuary, both ancient and modern, know very well that there are frequent deviations from art in the works of the greatest masters, which have produced a much nobler effect than a more accurate and exact way of proceeding could have done. This often arises from what the Italians call the _gusto grande_ in these arts, which is what we call the sublime in writing.

In the next place, our critics do not seem sensible that there is more beauty in the works of a great genius, who is ignorant of the rules of art, than in those of a little genius who knows and observes them. It is of those men of genius that Terrence speaks in opposition to the little artificial cavillers of his time:

"Quorum aemulari expotat negligentiam
Potius quam istorum obscuram diligentiam."
AND. PROL. 20.

"Whose negligence he would rather imitate, than these men's obscure diligence."

A critic may have the same consolation in the ill success of his play as Dr. South tells us a physician has at the death of a patient, that he was killed _secundum artem_. Our inimitable Shakespeare is a stumbling-block to the whole tribe of these rigid critics. Who would not rather read one of his plays, where there is not a single rule of the stage observed, than any production of a modern critic where there is not one of them violated![A] Shakespeare was indeed born with all the seeds of poetry, and may be compared to the stone in Pyrrhus's ring, which, as Pliny tells us, had the figure of Apollo and the nine Muses in the veins of it, produced by the spontaneous hand of Nature without any help from art.

[Footnote A: With all his fondness for classic models, Addison breaks away from conventionality of form in this essay, and pays his tribute to the genius of Shakespeare. But critical Joe could never forget the bard's so-called "faults" of construction.]

THEATRICAL PROPERTY

(_Steele in "The Tatler," No. 42_)

It is now twelve of the clock at noon, and no mail come in; therefore I am not without hopes that the town will allow me the liberty which my brother news-writers take in giving them what may be for information in another kind, and indulge me in doing an act of friendship, by publishing the following account of goods and moveables.

This is to give notice, that a magnificent palace, with great variety of gardens, statues, and water works, may be bought cheap in Drury-lane; where there are likewise several castles, to be disposed of, very delightfully situated; as also groves, woods, forests, fountains, and country-seats, with very pleasant prospects on all sides of them; being the moveables of Christopher Rich, Esquire,[A] who is breaking up house-keeping, and has many curious pieces of furniture to dispose of, which may be seen between the hours of six and ten in the evening.

[Footnote A: This essay was written (July, 1709) at the time that Drury Lane was closed, by order of the Lord Chamberlain.]

THE INVENTORY.

Spirits of right Nantz brandy, for lambent flames and apparitions.

Three bottles and a half of lightning.

One shower of snow in the whitest French paper.

Two showers of a browner sort.

A sea, consisting of a dozen large waves; the tenth bigger than ordinary, and a little damaged.

A dozen and a half of clouds, trimmed with black, and well conditioned.

A rainbow, a little faded.

A set of clouds after the French mode, streaked with lightning and furbelowed.

A new moon, something decayed.

A pint of the finest Spanish wash, being all that is left of two hogsheads sent over last winter.

A coach very finely gilt, and little used, with a pair of dragons, to be sold cheap.

A setting-sun, a pennyworth.

An imperial mantle, made for Cyrus the Great, and worn by Julius Caesar, Bajazet, King Harry the Eighth, and Signor Valentini.

A basket-hilted sword, very convenient to carry milk in.

Roxana's night-gown.

Othello's handkerchief.

The imperial robes of Xerxes, never worn but once.

A wild boar killed by Mrs. Tofts[A] and Dioclesian.

[Footnote A: A favourite singer of the day.]

A serpent to sting Cleopatra.

A mustard-bowl to make thunder with.

Another of a bigger sort, by Mr. D----'s[A] directions, little used.

[Footnote A: John Dennis, the critic.]

Six elbow-chairs, very expert in country dances, with six flower-pots for their partners.

The whiskers of a Turkish Pasha.

The complexion of a murderer in a band-box; consisting of a large piece of burnt cork, and a coal-black peruke.

A suit of clothes for a ghost, viz., a bloody shirt, a doublet curiously pinked, and a coat with three great eyelet-holes upon the breast.

A bale of red Spanish wool.

Modern plots, commonly known by the name of trapdoors, ladders of ropes, vizard-masques, and tables with broad carpets over them.

Three oak-cudgels, with one of crab-tree; all bought for the use of Mr. Pinkethman.[A]

[Footnote A: The comedian.]

Materials for dancing; as masques, castanets, and a ladder of ten rounds.

Aurengezebe's scymitar, made by Will Brown in Piccadilly.

A plume of feathers, never used but by Oedipus and the Earl of Essex.

There are also swords, halbards, sheep-hooks, cardinals' hats, turbans, drums, gallipots, a gibbet, a cradle, a rack, a cart-wheel, an altar, an helmet, a back-piece, a breast-plate, a bell, a tub, and a jointed baby.

ACTORS AND AUDIENCE.

(_From Cibber's "Apology_")

Among our many necessary reformations, what not a little preserved to us the regard of our auditors was the decency of our clear stage, from whence we had now for many years shut out those idle gentlemen who seemed more delighted to be pretty objects themselves than capable of any pleasure from the play; who took their daily stands where they might best elbow the actor, and come in for their share of the auditor's attention. In many a laboured scene of the wannest humour and of the most affecting passion I have seen the best actors disconcerted, while these buzzing muscatos have been fluttering round their eyes and ears. How was it possible an actor, so embarrassed, should keep his impatience from entering into that different temper which his personated character might require him to be master of?

Future actors may perhaps wish I would set this grievance in a stronger light; and, to say the truth, where auditors are ill-bred, it cannot well be expected that actors should be polite. Let me therefore show how far an artist in any science is apt to be hurt by any sort of inattention to his performance.

While the famous Corelli,[A] at Rome, was playing some musical composition of his own to a select company in the private apartment of his patron-Cardinal, he observed, in the heighth of his harmony, his Eminence was engaging in a detached conversation, upon which he suddenly stopt short and gently laid down his instrument. The Cardinal, surprised at the unexpected cessation, asked him if a string was broke? To which Corelli, in an honest conscience of what was due to his musick, reply'd, "No, Sir, I was only afraid I enterrupted business." His Eminence, who knew that a genius could never shew itself to advantage where it had not its regards, took this reproof in good part, and broke off his conversation to hear the whole concerto played over again.

[Footnote A: Arcangelo Corelli, the "father of modern instrumental music."]

Another story will let us see what effect a mistaken offence of this kind had upon the French theatre, which was told me by a gentleman of the long robe, then at Paris, and who was himself the innocent author of it. At the tragedy of "Zaire," while the celebrated Mademoiselle Gossin[A] was delivering a soliloquy, this gentleman was seized with a sudden fit of coughing, which gave the actress some surprise and interruption; and his fit increasing, she was forced to stand silent so long that it drew the eyes of the uneasy audience upon him, when a French gentleman, leaning forward to him, asked him, If this actress had given him any particular offence, that he took so publick an occasion to resent it? The English gentleman, in the utmost surprise, assured him, So far from it, that he was a particular admirer of her performance; that his malady was his real misfortune, and if he apprehended any return of it, he would rather quit his seat than disoblige either the actress or the audience.

[Footnote A: Jeanne, Catherine Gossin, of the Comédie Française.]

This publick decency in their theatre I have myself seen carried so far that a gentleman in their second Loge, or middle-gallery, being observed to sit forward himself while a lady sate behind him, a loud number of voices called out to him from the pit, "_Place à la Dame! Place à la Dame_!" When the person so offending, either not apprehending the meaning of the clamour, or possibly being some John Trott who feared no man alive, the noise was continued for several minutes; nor were the actors, though ready on the stage, suffered to begin the play till this unbred person was laughed out of his seat, and had placed the lady before him.

Whether this politeness observed at plays may be owing to their clime, their complexion, or their government, is of no great consequence; but if it is to be acquired, methinks it is a pity our accomplished countrymen, who every year import so much of this nation's gawdy garniture, should not, in this long course of our commerce with them, have brought over a little of their theatrical good-breeding too.

INDEX

Abington, Mrs.
Actors and audience, Colley Cibber on
Addison, Joseph
his "Cato"
Anne, Queen
Anne's reign, Life in Queen
Ashbury, Joseph
Ashton's "Reign of Queen Anne"
Aston, Tony
Attorneys of Queen Anne's day

Baggs, Zachary
Baker of Dublin
Barry, Spranger,
Mrs. Spranger
Barry, Mrs. Elizabeth
Bartholomew Fair
Bath life
"Beaux' Stratagem," Farquhar's
Bellchambers, Edmund
Bertie, Miss Dye
Betterton, Thomas
Blackmore, Dr. (Sir Richard)
Boileau
Bolingbroke, Lord
Booth, Barton
Mrs. Barton
_see also_ Santlow
Boswell, James
Bowman, an actor
Bracegirdle, Anne
Bradshaw, Mrs.
Brett, Colonel
Miss Anne
Broschi, Carlo (Farinelli)
Budgell, Eustace
Bullock, an actor
Burney, Dr.
"Busiris," Young's

Cadogan, Charles Sloane, 1st Earl
Campbell, Thomas
"Careless Husband," Cibber's
Cat, Christopher
Cat-calls
"Cato," Addison's
Centlivre, Mrs.
her "Perplexed Lovers"
Centlivre, Mr.
Charles II., King
Chener, Mons.
Chetwood, W.R.
"Christian Hero, The," Steele's
Church and stage
Church music and the theatre
Churchill, General (Marlborough's nephew)
Churchill, Colonel (Oldfield's son)
Churchill, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough
Churchill, Mary, Countess of Cadogan
Cibber, Caius Gabriel
Cibber, Colley
"Cibber, Apology for the Life of"
Cibber, Theophilus
Clive, Mrs.
Coffee-houses of Addison's day
Collier, William
Colman's "Random Records"
Congreve
Corelli, Arcangelo
Costumes, Stage
Courthorpe's "Addison"
Covent Garden Theatre
Craggs, Mr. Secretary
Crawley, the showman
Critics, Addison on dramatic
Crown, John
Cuzzoni, Francesca

Davenant, Alexander
Davies, T.
Defoe, Daniel
Delany, Mrs.
Dennis, John,
"Essay on the Operas"
Diction of the eighteenth century
"Distressed Mother, The," Philips'
Dod, Benjamin
Dogget, Thomas
Doran, Dr.
Dorset, Earl of
Dorset, Garden Theatre
Downes, the prompter
Drama and the Restoration
Dramatic critics (Addison)
Dramatic writings, old and new
Drury Lane Theatre
Drury Lane,
revolt of Betterton
another exodus
riot
Drury Lane, Company
Dryden
"Duke of York's Company"
D'Urfey's "Western Lass"

"Echoes of the Playhouse"
Elrington, Thomas
Epilogues, Comic (The _Spectator_)
Estcourt, Dick
Eugene, Prince
Evans, John

"Fair Quaker of Deal," Shadwell's
Farinelli
Farquhar, Capt. George
Faustina, Bordoni Hasse
Fielding, Henry
Fitzgerald, Percy
Fontaine, Monsieur de la
Foote, Samuel
"Funeral, or Grief à la Mode, The," Steele's
Funeral customs, old time

Gambling women
Garrick, David
Garth, Dr.
Genest, P.
George I., King
Gildon, Charles,
Gossin, Jeane Catherine
Gregory, Mr.
Griffith, Thomas
Gwyne, Nell

Habits of society
Halifax, Lord
Haymarket Theatre,
restricted to operas
"Hearts, The King of," Maynwaring's
Hendon, Heywoodhill
Henley, Mr.
Hertford, Countess of
Hill, Aaron
Horton, Mrs.
Howard, Bronson
Hoyt, Mr.
Hughes, Mr.
Hulet, Charles

Ibsen
"Inconstant, The," Farquhar's
Ingolsby, General
Italian opera

"Jane Shore," Rowe's
Jerusalem Chamber, Westminster
Johnson, Dr. Samuel
Johnstone, Drury Lane machinist
Jones, Henry Arthur
Jonson, Benjamin

Keen, Theophilus
Killigrew, Charles
"King's Company, The"
Kit-Cat Club
Knight, Mrs.
Knipp, Mrs.

Lambro, Miss
Lecouvreur, French actress
Leigh, Francis
Lincoln's Inn Field Theatre of 1695,
re-opened
"Lives of the Poets," Cibber's
Lorrain, Rev. Paul
Lowe, R.W.

Macclesfield, Anne, 1st Countess of
Macklin
"Make-up," Art of
Marlborough, _see_ Churchill
Master of the Revels, office of
Maynwaring, Arthur,
Maynwaring, Mr. (Oldfield's son)
"Milk White Flag, A," Mr. Hoyt's
Mills, John
Misson's, Henre, "Memoirs"
Mist, Nathaniel
_Mist's Weekly Journal_
Mitford, M.R.
Mitre Tavern
Molière
Montagu, Captain
Morley's "Notes on The _Spectator_"
Mountford, Will
Mountford, Mrs., _see_ Verbruggen
Mountford, Susan

Neal, Edmund, "Phaedra and Hippolitus"
"Non-Juror, The," Cibber's
Norris, an actor

Oldfield, Captain
Oldfield, Mrs.
Oldfield, Anne (Nance)
birth
meets Farquhar
introduced to Vanbrugh,
joins the stage
Bath _début_
first stage triumph
Cibber's "Careless Husband" her success
deportment
as Sylvia in Farquhar's "Recruiting Officer"
leaves Drury Lane for the Haymarket
supplants Mrs. Bracegirdle
salary at the Haymarket
---- and at Drury Lane
as Andromache in "Distressed Mother"
plays Marcia in "Cato"
meets Alexander Pope
tragic parts
rivals produce a riot, her triumph
as Jane Shore
adheres to Drury Lane
takes Sophonisba, praised by Thomson
meridian lustre
mistress of A. Maynwaring
personal attractions
accepts protection of Marlborough's nephew
received at Court
her natural children
ancestress of Earls of Cadogan
sympathy for Richard Savage
intercedes for his life
mourned by Savage
contemporaries
her equipage
sweetness and common sense
retains her bloom
captivating as Lady Townley
moved in polite circles
ill-health, dies in Lower Grosvenor Street
laid in State in the Jerusalem Chamber
interred in Westminster Abbey
Oldfield, Anne, elegy by Richard Savage
Opera, Italian
Operatic singers
Oxford and the drama
actors contribute to St. Mary's restoration fund

Page, Francis
Pepy's Diary
"Perplexed Lovers, The," Centlivre's
Philips, Ambrose
Players in Queen Anne's time
Pope, Alexander
Porter, Mistress
Powell, George
Prince George of Denmark
Pritchard, Sir William
"Provoked Husband, The," Vanbrugh and Cibber's

Radcliffe, Dr.
"Recruiting Officer, The," Farquhar's
Rich, Christopher
Rich, John
Rivers, Lord
Rogers, Mrs.
Rowe, Nicholas
Russell Court Chapel
Ryan, Lacy

Sandridge, Dean
Santlow, Hester
_see also_ Booth, Mrs.
Saunders, Mistress
Savage, Richard
Schlegel, Augustus Wm.
"Scornful Lady, The"
Shadwell, Thomas
Sheridan, Richard Brinsley
Side-shows
"Sir Courtly Nice," Crown's
"Sir Thomas Overbury," Savage's
Skipworth, Sir Thomas
Smith, an actor
_Spectator, The_
Stage armies
Stanyan, T.
Steele, Sir Richard
Strolling players
Swift, Dean
Swiney, Owen

"Tamerlane," N. Rowe's
"Tartuffe," Molière's
Theatre and church
and playgoers
Theatrical dress
claptrap, Addison on
property, Sir R. Steele on
Theatricals began, Hour
Thomas, Augustus
Thomson's "Sophonisba"
Thurmond, John
Toasts
Toasting glasses
Tofts, Mrs.
Tonson, Jacob
Trumbull, Sir William

Vanbrugh, Sir John
Verbruggen, Mrs.
Voltaire
Voss, Mrs.

Walker, an actor
Walpole, Horace
Walpole, Sir Robert
Ward, Ned
Wig, cost of a full-bottomed
Wilks, Robert
William III., King
Williams, Joseph
Woffington, Peg
"Wonder, The," Mrs. Centlivre's
Woollen shrouds

Yates, Mistress
Young's, Dr., "Busiris"