Chapter VI (1)

Great Queen Street -- Former fashionable Houses there -- Lewis
and Miss Pope, the Comedians -- Martin Folkes -- Sir Godfrey
Kneller and his Vanity -- Dr. Radcliffe -- Lord Herbert of
Cherbury -- Nuisance of Whetstone Park -- The Three Dukes and
the Beadle -- Rogues and Vagabonds in the Time of Charles II --
Former Theatres in Vere Street and Portugal Street -- First
appearance of Actresses -- Infamous deception of one of them by
the Earl of Oxford -- Appearance of an avowed Impostor on the
Stage -- Anecdotes of the Wits and fine Ladies of the Time of
Charles, connected with the Theatre in this Quarter --
Kynaston, Betterton, Nokes, Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Mountford, and
other Performers -- Rich -- Joe Miller -- Carey Street and Mrs.
Chapone -- Clare Market -- History, and Specimens, of Orator
Henley -- Duke Street and Little Wild Street -- Anecdotes of
Dr. Franklin's Residence in those Streets while a Journeyman
Printer.

Great Queen Street, in the time of the Stuarts, was one of the grandest and most fashionable parts of the town. The famous Lord Herbert of Cherbury died there. Lord Bristol had a house in it, Lord Chancellor Finch, and the Conway and Paulet families. Some of the houses towards the west retain pilasters and other ornaments, probably indicating, as Pennant observes, the abodes in question. Little thought the noble lords that a time would come, when a player should occupy their rooms, and be able to entertain their descendants in them; but in a house of this description, lately occupied by Messrs. Allman the booksellers, died Lewis, the comedian, one of the most delightful performers of his class, and famous to the last for his invincible airiness and juvenility. Mr. Lewis displayed a combination rarely to be found in acting, that of the fop and the real gentleman. With a voice, a manner, and a person, all equally graceful and light, and features at once whimsical and genteel, he played on the top of his profession like a plume. He was the Mercutio of the age, in every sense of the word mercurial. His airy, breathless voice, thrown to the audience before he appeared, was the signal of his winged animal spirits; and when he gave a glance of his eye, or touched his finger at another's ribs, it was the very _punctum saliens_ of playfulness and inuendo. We saw him take leave of the public, a man of sixty-five, looking not more than half the age, in the character of the Copper Captain; and heard him say, in a voice broken by emotion, that "for the space of thirty years, he had not once incurred their displeasure."

Next door but one to the Freemasons' Tavern (westward), for many years lived another celebrated comic performer, Miss Pope, one of a very different sort, and looking as heavy and insipid as her taste was otherwise. She was an actress of the highest order for dry humour; one of those who convey the most laughable things with a grave face. Churchill, in the _Rosciad_, when she must have been very young, mentions her as an actress of great vivacity, advancing in a "jig," and performing the parts of Cherry and Polly Honeycomb. There was certainly nothing of the Cherry and Honeycomb about her when older; but she was an admirable Mrs. Malaprop.

Queen Street continued to be a place of fashionable resort for a considerable period after the Revolution. As we have been speaking of the advancement of actors in social rank, we will take occasion of the birth of Martin Folkes in this street, the celebrated scholar and antiquary, to mention that he was one of the earliest persons among the gentry to marry an actress. His wife was Lucretia Bradshaw. It may be thought worth observing by the romantic, that the ladies who were first selected to give this rise to the profession, had all something peculiar in their Christian names. Lord Peterborough married Anastasia Robinson, and the Duke of Bolton, Lavinia Fenton.

Sir Godfrey Kneller, and Radcliffe the physician, lived in this street. We mention them together because they were neighbours, and there is a pleasant anecdote of them in conjunction. The author of a book lately published, describes their neighbourhood as being in Bow Street; but Horace Walpole, the authority for the story, places it in the street before us; adding, in a note, that Kneller "first lived in Durham Yard (in the Strand), then twenty-one years in Covent Garden (we suppose in Bow Street), and lastly in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields." "Kneller," says Walpole, "was fond of flowers, and had a fine collection. As there was great intimacy between him and the physician, he permitted the latter to have a door into his garden; but Radcliffe's servants gathering and destroying the flowers, Kneller sent him word he must shut up the door. Radcliffe replied peevishly, 'Tell him he may do anything with it but paint it.' 'And I,' answered Sir Godfrey, 'can take anything from him but physic.'"[215]

Kneller, besides being an admired painter (and it is supposed from one of his performances, the portrait of a Chinese, that he could have been admired by posterity, if he chose), was a man of wit; but so vain, that he is described as being the butt of all the wits of his acquaintances. They played upon him undoubtedly, and at a great rate; but it has been suggested by a shrewd observer, that while he consented to have his vanity tickled at any price, he humoured the joke himself, and was quite aware of what they were at. Nor is this inconsistent with the vanity, which would always make large allowances for the matter of fact. The extravagance it would limit where it pleased; the truth remained; and Sir Godfrey, as Pope said, had a large appetite. With this probability a new interest is thrown upon the anecdotes related of his vanity, with the best of which the reader is accordingly presented. Kneller was a German, born at Lubec, so that his English is to be read with a foreign accent.

The younger Richardson tells us, that Gay read Sir Godfrey a copy of verses, in which he had pushed his flattery so far, that he was all the while in dread lest the knight should detect him. When Kneller had heard this through, he said, in his foreign style and accent, "Ay, Mr. Gay, all what you have said is very fine, and very true; but you have forgot one thing, my good friend; by G--, I should have been a general of an army; for when I was at Venice, there was a _girandole_, and all the place of St. Mark was in a smoke of gunpowder, and I did like the smell, Mr. Gay; should have been a great general, Mr. Gay!"

Perhaps it was this real or apparent obtuseness which induced Gay to add "engineering" to his other talents, in the verses describing Pope's welcome from Greece:--

"Kneller amid the triumph bears his part,
Who could (were mankind lost) a new create:
What can the extent of his vast soul confine?
A painter, critic, engineer, divine."

The following is related on the authority of Pope:--

"Old Jacob Tonson got a great many fine pictures, and two of
himself, from him, by this means. Sir Godfrey was very
covetous, but then he was very vain, and a great glutton; so he
played these passions against the others; besides telling him
that he was the greatest master that ever was, sending him,
every now and then, a haunch of venison, and dozens of
excellent claret. 'O, my G--, man,' said he once to Vander
Gucht, 'this old Jacob loves me; he is a very good man; you see
he loves me, he sends me good things; the venison was fat.' Old
Geekie, the surgeon, got several fine pictures of him too, and
an excellent one of himself; but then he had them cheaper, for
he gave nothing but praises; but then his praises were as fat
as Jacob's venison; neither could be too fat for Sir Godfrey."

Pope related the following to Spence:--

"As I was sitting by Sir Godfrey Kneller one day, whilst he was
drawing a picture, he stopt, and said, 'I can't do as well as I
should do, unless you flatter me a little, Mr. Pope! You know I
love to be flattered.' I was for once willing," continues Pope,
"to try how far this vanity would carry him; and after
considering a picture which he had just finished, for a good
while very attentively, I said to him in French (for he had
been talking for some time before in that language), 'On lit
dans les Ecritures Saintes, que le bon Dieu faisoit l'homme
après son image: mais, je crois, que s'il voudroit faire un
autre à présent, qu'il le feroit après l'image que voilà.' Sir
Godfrey turned round, and said very gravely, 'Vous avez raison,
Monsieur Pope; par Dieu, je le crois aussi.'"

It must not be omitted that Kneller was a kind-hearted man. At Whitton, where he had a seat, he was justice of the peace, and,

"Was so much more swayed," says Walpole, "by equity than law,
that his judgments, accompanied with humour, are said to have
occasioned those lines by Pope:--

"I think Sir Godfrey should decide the suit,
Who sent the thief (that stole the cash) away,
And punish'd him that put it in his way."

"This alluded to his dismissing a soldier who had stolen a
joint of meat, and accused the butcher of having tempted him
by it. Whenever Sir Godfrey was applied to, to determine what
parish a poor man belonged to, he always inquired which parish
was the richer, and settled the poor man there; nor would he
ever sign a warrant to distrain the goods of a poor man who
could not pay a tax."[216]

Poor Radcliffe, after reigning as a physician so despotically, that Arbuthnot, in his projected map of diseases, was for putting him up at the corner of it disputing the empire of the world, became a less happy man than Sir Godfrey, by reason of his falling in love in his old age. He set up a coach, adorned with mythological paintings,--at least, Steele says so; but soon had to put it in mourning for the death of his flame, who was a Miss Tempest, one of the maids of honour. Radcliffe was the Tory physician, and Steele, in the "Tatler," with a party spirit that was much oftener aggrieved than provoked in that good-natured writer, was induced, by some circumstance or other, perhaps Radcliffe's insolence, to make a ludicrous description of him, "as the mourning Esculapius, the languishing, hopeless lover of the divine Hebe." Steele accuses him of avarice. Others have said he was generous. He was the founder of the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, and made other magnificent bequests; which prove nothing either way. But it is not favourable to a reputation for generosity, to own (as he did), that he was fond of spunging, and to avoid the paying of bills. However, when he lost 5,000_l._ in a speculation, he said "he had nothing to do but to go up so many pair of stairs to make himself whole again." He was undoubtedly a very clever physician, though he made little use of books. Like many men who go upon their own grounds in this way, he had an abrupt and clownish manner, which he probably thought of use. According to Richardson, he one day said to Dr. Mead, "Mead, I love you; now I will tell you a sure secret to make your fortune. Use all mankind ill." It is worth observing, that Mead acted on the reverse principle, and made double the fortune of his adviser. Radcliffe is said have attended the lady of Judge Holt, in a bad illness, with unusual assiduity, "out of pique to her husband;" a very new kind of satire. He used to send huffing messages to Queen Anne, telling her that he would not come, and that she only had the vapours; and when King William consulted him on his swollen ankles and thin body, Radcliffe said he "would not have his Majesty's two legs for his three kingdoms;" a speech which it was not in the nature of royalty to forgive. His death is said to have been hastened by his refusal to attend on Queen Anne in her last illness; which so exasperated the populace that he was afraid to leave his country house at Carshalton, where he died. He lived in Bow Street when he first came to London; and afterwards in Bloomsbury Square.

But the most remarkable inhabitant of Queen Street was Lord Herbert of Cherbury, one of those extraordinary individuals who, with a touch of madness on the irascible side, and subject to the greatest blindness of self-love, possess a profound judgment on every other point. Such persons are supposed to be victims of imagination; but they are rather mechanical enthusiasts (though of a high order), and, for want of an acquaintance with the imaginative, become at the mercy of the first notion which takes their will by surprise. Lord Herbert, who in the intellectual part was intended for a statist and a man of science, was unfortunately one of the hottest of Welchmen in the physical. Becoming a Knight of the Bath, he took himself for a knight-errant, and fancied he was bound to fight everybody he met with, and to lie under trees in the fields of Holland. He thought Revelation a doubtful matter, and so he had recourse to the Deity for a revelation in his particular favour to disprove it. We have related an anecdote of him at Northumberland House, and shall have more to tell; but the account of his having recourse to Heaven for the satisfaction of his doubts of its interference, must not be omitted here. Perhaps it took place in this very street. His Lordship was the first Deist in England that has left an account of his opinions. Speaking of the work he wrote on this subject, he says:--

"My book 'De Veritate prout distinguitur à Revelatione
verisimili, possibili, et à falso,' having been begun by me in
England, and formed there in all its principal parts, was about
this time finished; all the spare hours which I could get from
my visits and negotiations being employed to perfect this work;
which was no sooner done, but that I communicated it to Hugo
Grotius--that great scholar, who, having escaped his prison in
the Low Countries, came into France, and was much welcomed by
me and Monsieur Tieleners, also one of the greatest scholars of
his time; who, after they had perused it, and given it more
commendations than is fit for me to repeat, exhorted me
earnestly to print and publish it; howbeit, as the frame of my
whole work was so different from anything which had been
written heretofore, I found I must either renounce the
authority of all that I had written formerly, concerning the
method of finding out truth, and consequently insist upon my
own way, or hazard myself to a general censure concerning the
whole argument of my book; I must confess it did not a little
animate me, that the two great persons above-mentioned did so
highly value it; yet, as I knew it would meet with much
opposition, I did consider whether it was not better for me for
a while to suppress it.

"Being thus doubtful in my chamber one fair day in the summer,
my casement being open towards the south, the sun shining
clear, and no wind stirring, I took my book, 'De Veritate,' in
my hand, and kneeling on my knees, devoutly said these words:--

"'Oh, thou eternal God, author of the light which now shines
upon me, and giver of all inward illuminations, I do beseech
thee of thy infinite goodness to pardon a greater request than
a sinner ought to make; I am not satisfied enough whether I
shall publish this book 'De Veritate;' if it be for thy glory,
I beseech thee give me some sign from heaven; if not, I shall
suppress it.'

"I had no sooner spoken these words, but a loud though gentle
noise came from the heavens (for it was like nothing on earth)
which did so comfort and cheer me, that I took my petition as
granted, and that I had the sign I demanded; whereupon also I
resolved to print my book. This (how strange soever it may
seem) I protest, before the eternal God, is true; neither am I
any way superstitiously deceived herein; since I did not only
hear the noise, but, in the serenest sky that ever I saw, being
without all cloud, did to my thinking see the place from whence
it came."[217]

"How could a man," justly observes Walpole on this passage, "who doubted of partial, believe individual revelation! What vanity to think his book of such importance to the cause of truth, that it could extort a declaration of the Divine will, when the interest of half mankind could not!" Yet the same writer is full of admiration of him in other respects. It is well observed by the editor of the _Autobiography_ (in reply to the doubts thrown on his lordship's veracity respecting his chivalrous propensities, the consequences of which always fell short of duels), that much of the secret might be owing "to his commanding aspect and acknowledged reputation; and a little more to a certain perception of the Quixote in his character, with which it might be deemed futile to contend. His surprising defence of himself against the attack of Sir John Ayres, forcibly exhibits his personal strength and mastery; and his spirited treatment of the French Minister, Luynes, and the general esteem of his contemporaries, sufficiently attest his quick feeling of national and personal dignity, and general gallantry of bearing." There is no doubt, in short, that Lord Herbert of Cherbury was a brave, an honest, and an able man, though with some weaknesses, both of heat and vanity, sufficient to console the most common-place.

With all this elegance of neighbourhood, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the time of Charles II., had one eyesore of an enormous description, in a place behind Holborn row, entitled Whetstone Park. It is now a decent passage between Great and Little Turnstiles.

"It is scarcely necessary," says Mr. Malcolm, "to remind the
reader of a well-known fact, that all sublunary things are
subject to change:--he who passes through the Little Turnstile,
Holborn, at present, will observe on the left hand, near
Lincoln's Inn Fields, a narrow street, composed of small
buildings, on the corner of which is inscribed Whetstone Park.
The repose and quiet of the place seem to proclaim strong
pretensions to regular and moral life in the inhabitants; and
well would it have been for the happiness of many a family, had
the site always exhibited the same appearance. On the contrary,
Whetstone Park contributed to increase the dissoluteness of
manners which distinguished the period between 1660 and 1700.
Being a place of low entertainment, numerous disturbances
occurred there, and rendered it subject to the satire and
reprehension even of 'Poor Robin's Intelligencer,' a paper
almost infamous enough for the production of a keeper of this
theatre of vice. The publication alluded to says, in 1676,
'Notwithstanding the discourses that have been to the contrary,
the boarding-school is still continued here, where a set of
women may be readily untaught all the studies of modesty or
chastity; to which purpose they are provided with a two-handed
volume of impudence, loosely bound up in greasy vellum, which
is tied by the leg to a wicker chair (as you find authors
chained in a library), and is always ready to give you plain
instructions and directions in all matters relating to
immorality or irreligion.' * *

"Incomprehensible as it certainly is," continues our author,
"the brutal acts of a mob are sometimes the result of a just
sense of the ill consequences attending vice; and, although
almost every individual composing it is capable of performing
deeds which deserve punishment from the police, they cannot
collectively view long and deliberate offences against the laws
of propriety, without assuming the right of reforming them.
'The Loyal and Impartial Mercury' of Sept. 1, 1682, has this
paragraph:--'On Saturday last, about 500 apprentices, and such
like, being got together in Smithfield, went into Lincoln's Inn
Fields, where they drew up, and marching into Whetstone Park,
fell upon the lewd houses there, where, having broken open the
doors, they entered, and made great spoil of the goods; of
which the constables and watchmen having notice, and not
finding themselves strong enough to quell the tumult, procured
a party of the King's guards who dispersed them, and took
eleven, who were committed to New Prison; yet on Sunday night
they came again, and made worse havoc than before, breaking
down all the doors and windows, and cutting the featherbeds and
goods in pieces.' Another newspaper explains the origin of the
riot by saying, 'that a countryman who had been decoyed into
one of the houses alluded to, and robbed, lodged a formal and
public complaint against them to those he found willing to
listen to him in Smithfield, and thus raised the
ferment.'"[218]

In the "State Poems" is a doggrel set of verses on a tragical circumstance occasioned by a frolic of three of Charles's natural sons in this place. It is entitled "On the three Dukes killing the Beadle on Sunday morning, Feb. the 26th, 1671." A great sensation was made by this circumstance, which was naturally enough regarded as a signal instance of the consequences of Charles's mode of life. Our Grub Street writer selected his title well--the "Dukes," the "Beadle," and the "Sunday." His first four lines might have been put into Martinus Scriblerus, as a specimen of the Newgate style.

"Near Holborn lies a park of great renown,
The place, I do suppose, is not unknown:
For brevity's sake the name I shall not tell,
Because most genteel readers know it well."

The three Dukes pick a quarrel with one poor damsel, and "murder" was cried.

"In came the watch, disturbed with sleep and ale,
By noises shrill, but they could not prevail
T' appease their Graces. Strait rose mortal jars,
Betwixt the night blackguard and silver stars;
Then fell the beadle by a ducal hand,
For daring to pronounce the saucy stand.

* * * * *

See what mishaps dare e'en invade Whitehall,
This silly fellow's death puts off the ball,
And disappoints the Queen, poor little chuck;
I warrant t'would have danced it like a duck.
The fiddlers, voices, entries, all the sport,
And the gay show put off, where the brisk court
Anticipates, in rich subsidy coats,
All that is got by necessary votes.
Yet shall Whitehall, the innocent, the good,
See these men dance, all daubed with lace and blood."[219]

The "subsidy coats" allude to Charles's raising money for his profligate expenditure under pretence of the public service. The last couplet would have done credit to a better satire.

As we are upon the subject of a neighbourhood to which they apply, we shall proceed to give a few more extracts from Mr. Malcolm, highly characteristic of the lower orders of desperadoes in Charles's reign.

"The various deceivers," he tells us, "who preyed upon the
public at this time were exposed in a little filthy work called
the 'Canting Academy,' which went through more than one edition
(the second is dated 1674). I shall select from it enough to
show the variety of villany practised under their various
names. The _Ruffler_ was a wretch who assumed the character of
a maimed soldier, and begged from the claims of Naseby,
Edgehill, Newbury, and Marston Moor. Those who were stationed
in the city of London were generally found in Lincoln's Inn
Fields and Covent Garden; and their prey was people of fashion,
whose coaches were attacked boldly; and if denied, their owners
were told, ''Tis a sad thing that an old crippled cavalier
should be suffered to beg for a maintenance, and a young
cavalier that had never heard the whistle of a bullet should
ride in his coach.'

"There were people called _Anglers_, from the nature of their
method of depredating, which was thus.--They had a rod or
stick, with an iron hook affixed: this they introduced through
a window, or any other aperture, where plunder might be
procured, and helped themselves at pleasure; the day was
occupied by them in the character of beggars, when they made
their observations for the angling of the night.

"_Wild Rogues_ were the offspring of thieves and beggars, who
received the rudiments of the art even before they left their
mothers' backs: "To go into churches and great crowds, and to
_nim_ golden buttons off men's cloaks; and being very little
are shown how to creep into cellar windows, or other small
entrances, and in the night to convey out thereat whatever they
can find to the thievish receivers, who wait without for that
purpose; and sometimes do open the door to let in such who have
designed to rob the house; if taken, the tenderness of their
age makes an apology or an excuse for their fault, and so are
let alone to be hanged at riper years.'

"_Palliards_ or _Clapperdogeons_, were those women who sat and
reclined in the streets, with their own borrowed or stolen
children hanging about them, crying through cold, pinching, or
real disease, who begged relief as widows, and, in the name of
their fatherless children, gaining by this artifice, 'a great
deal of money, whilst her comrogue lies begging in the fields,
with climes or artificial sores.' The way they commonly take to
make them is by sperewort or arsenic, which will draw blisters;
or they take unslacked lime and soap, mingled with the rust of
old iron: these being well tempered together, and spread thick
upon two pieces of leather, they apply to the leg, binding it
thereunto very hard, which in a very little time would fret the
skin so that the flesh would appear all raw, &c. &c.

"_Fraters_ were impostors who went through the country with
forged patents for briefs, and thus diverted charity from its
proper direction.

"_Abram men_ were fellows whose occupations seem to have been
forgotten. They are described in the 'Canting Academy' in these
words:--'Abram men are otherwise called Tom of Bedlams; they
are very strangely and antickly garbed, with several coloured
ribands or tape in their hats, it may be instead of a feather,
a fox tail hanging down, a long stick with ribands streaming,
and the like; yet for all their seeming madness they have wit
enough to steal as they go.'[220]

"The _Whip-Jacks_ have left us a specimen of their fraternity.
They were counterfeit mariners, whose conversations were
plentifully embellished with sea-terms, and falsehoods of their
danger in the exercise of their profession. Instead of securing
their arms and legs close to their bodies, and wrapping them in
bandages (as the modern _whip-jack_ is in the habit of doing,
to excite compassion for the loss of limbs and severe wounds),
the _ancients_ merely pretended they had lost their all by
shipwreck, and were reduced to beg their way to a sea-port, if
in the country; or to some remote one, if in London.

"_Mumpers._--The persons thus termed are described as being of
both sexes: they were not solicitors for food, but money and
cloathes. 'The male mumper, in the times of the late
usurpation, was clothed in an old torn cassock, begirt with a
girdle, with a black cap, and a white one peeping out
underneath.' With a formal and studied countenance he stole up
to a gentleman, and whispered him softly in the ear, that he
was a poor sequestered parson, with a wife and many children.
At other times, they would assume the habit of a decayed
gentleman, and beg as if they had been ruined by their
attachment to the royal cause. Sometimes the mumper appeared
with an apron before him, and a cap on his head, and begs in
the nature of a broken tradesman, who, having been a long time
sick, hath spent all his remaining stock, and so weak he cannot
work! The females of this class of miscreants generally
attacked the ladies, and in a manner suited to make an
impression on their finer feelings.

"_Domerars_ are such as counterfeit themselves dumb, and have a
notable art to roll their tongues up into the roof of their
mouth, that you would verily believe their tongues were cut
out; and, to make you have a stronger belief thereof, they will
gape and show you where it was done, clapping in a sharp stick,
and, touching the tongue, make it bleed--and then the ignorant
dispute it no further.'

"_Patricos_ are the strolling priests: every hedge is their
parish, and every wandering rogue their parishioner. The
service, he saith, is the marrying of couples, without the
Gospel, or Book of Common Prayer, the solemnity whereof is
thus: the parties to be married find out a dead horse, or any
other beast, and standing the one on the one side and the other
on the other, the patrico bids them to live together till death
them part; and, so shaking hands, the wedding is ended.'"[221]

On the southern side of Lincoln's Inn Fields, at the back of Portugal Row, is Portugal Street, formerly containing a theatre, as celebrated as Covent Garden or Drury Lane is now. This was the Duke's Theatre, so called from the Duke of York, afterwards James II., who, at the Restoration, patronised one of the principal companies of players, as his brother Charles did the other. The latter was the Drury Lane company. Readers of theatrical history are generally led to conclude that there was only one theatre in the Lincoln's Inn quarter; but this is a mistake. There were at least two successive houses in two different places, though usually confounded under the title of "the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields." The first was in Gibbon's tennis-court, in Vere Street, Clare Market, where the actors who had played at the Red Bull opened their performances in the year of the Restoration, under the direction of Killigrew, and with the title of King's Company. These in 1663 removed to Drury Lane. The Duke's, or Sir William Davenant's company, removed in 1662 from Salisbury Court (see Fleet Street) to a new theatre "in Portugal Row," says Malone, "_near_ Lincoln's Inn Fields."[222] Malone is a correct inquirer: so that he makes us doubt whether the name of Portugal Row did not formerly belong to Portugal Street. The latter is certainly meant, or he would describe it as _in_ and not _near_ the Fields. Davenant's company performed here till 1671, when they quitted it to return to the renovated theatre in Salisbury Court, under the management of his son, Charles Davenant (the father being dead), and the famous Betterton, who had been Sir William's first actor. The two companies afterwards came together at Drury Lane, but again fell apart; and in 1695 the Duke's company (if its altered composition could still warrant the name), with Betterton remaining at its head, and Congreve for a partner, again opened "the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields," which was rebuilt for the purpose, and is described as being in "the Tennis-court." Was this the tennis-court theatre in Vere Street? or were there two tennis-courts, one in Vere Street, and one in Lincoln's Inn Fields? We confess ourselves, after a diligent examination, unable to determine. At all events, the latest theatre of which we hear in Lincoln's Inn Fields, was not in Vere Street. It stood in Portugal Street, on the east end of the present burial ground, just at the back of Surgeons' College, and was subsequently the china warehouse of Messrs. Spode and Copeland.[223] This theatre, which was built of red brick, and had a front facing the market, is the one generally meant by the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. It finally became celebrated for the harlequinades of Rich; but, on his removal to Covent Garden, was deserted, and, after a short re-opening by Gifford from Goodman's Fields, finally ceased to be a theatre about the year 1737. Since that period Covent Garden and Drury Lane playhouses have had this part of the town to themselves.

It is conjectured, that the first appearance of an actress on the English stage, to the scandal of the Puritans, and with many apologies for the "indecorum" of giving up the performances of female characters by boys, took place in the theatre in Vere Street, on Saturday, Dec. 8, 1660. The part first performed was certainly that of Desdemona; a very fit one to introduce the claims of the sex.[224]

Mr. Malone has given us the prologue written for this occasion by Thomas Jordan; which, as it shows the "sensation" that was made, sets us in a lively manner in the situation of the spectators, and gives a curious account of some of the male actors of gentle womanhood, we shall here repeat. It is entitled "A Prologue, to introduce the first Woman that came to act on the Stage, in the Tragedy called the Moor of Venice:"

"I came unknown to any of the rest,
To tell the news; I saw the lady drest:
The woman plays to-day; mistake me not,
No man in gown, or page in petticoat:
A woman to my knowledge, yet I can't,
If I should die, make affidavit on't.
Do you not twitter, gentlemen? I know
You will be censuring: do it fairly, though;
'Tis possible a virtuous woman may
Abhor all sorts of looseness, and yet play;
Play on the stage--where all eyes are upon her:
Shall we count that a crime France counts an honour?
In other kingdoms husbands safely trust 'em;
The difference lies only in the custom.
And let it be our custom, I advise;
I'm sure this custom's better than th' excise,
And may procure _us_ custom: hearts of flint
Will melt in passion, when a woman's in't.
But, gentlemen, you that as judges sit
In the Star-chamber of the house--the pit,
Have modest thoughts of her; pray, do not run
To give her visits when the play is done,
With '_damn me, your most humble servant, lady_;'
She knows these things as well as you, it may be;
Not a bit there, dear gallants, she doth know
Her own deserts,--and your temptations too.
But to the point:--in this reforming age
We have intents to civilize the stage.
Our women are defective, and so sized,
You'd think they were some of the guard disguised;
For to speak truth, men act, that are between
Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen;
With bone so large, and nerve so incompliant,
When you call Desdemona, enter giant.
We shall purge everything that is unclean,
Lascivious, scurrilous, impious, or obscene;
And when we've put all things in this fair way,
Barebones himself may come to see a play."[225]

The epilogue, "which consists of but twelve lines, is in the same strain of apology."

"And how do you like her; Come, what is't ye drive at?
She's the same thing in public as in private,
As far from being what you call a whore,
As Desdemona injured by the Moor;
Then he that censures her in such a case,
Hath a soul blacker than Othello's face.
But, ladies, what think _you_? for if you tax
Her freedom with dishonour to your sex,
She means to act no more, and this shall be
No other play, but her own tragedy.
She will submit to none but your commands,
And take commission only from your hands."[226]

From the nature of this epilogue, and the permission accorded by the ladies, the women actors appear to have met with all the success they could wish; yet a prologue to the second part of Davenant's "Siege of Rhodes," acted in April, 1662, shows us that the matter was still considered a delicate one upwards of a year afterwards.

"Hope little from our poet's withered wit,
From infant players scarce grown puppets yet;
Hope from our women less, whose bashful fear
Wondered to see me dare to enter here:
Each took her leave, and wished my danger past,
And though I came back safe and undisgraced,
Yet when they spy the wits here, then I doubt
No amazon can make them venture out,
Though I advised them not to fear you much,
For I presume not half of you are such."[227]

It was in the Theatre at Vere Street that Pepys first saw a woman on the stage.[228] One of the earliest female performers mentioned by him was an actress whose name is not ascertained, but who attained an unfortunate celebrity in the part of Roxana in the "Siege of Rhodes." She was seduced by Aubery de Vere, the last Earl of Oxford of that name, under the guise of a private marriage--a species of villany which made a great figure in works of fiction up to a late period. The story is "got up" in detail by Madame Dunois, in her "History of the Court of Charles II.;"[229] but it is told with more brevity in Grammont; and as the latter, though apocryphal enough, pretends to say nothing on the subject in which he is not borne out by other writers, his lively account may be laid before the reader.

"The Earl of Oxford," says one of his heroines, "fell in love
with a handsome, graceful actress, belonging to the Duke's
theatre, who performed to perfection, particularly the part of
Roxana in a very fashionable new play; insomuch that she ever
after retained that name. This creature being both very
virtuous and very modest, or, if you please, wonderfully
obstinate, proudly rejected the presents and addresses of the
Earl of Oxford. The resistance inflamed his passion; he had
recourse to invectives and even spells; but all in vain. This
disappointment had such an effect upon him, that he could
neither eat nor drink; this did not signify to him; but his
passion at length became so violent, that he could neither play
nor smoke. In this extremity, Love had recourse to Hymen; the
Earl of Oxford, one of the first peers of the realm, is, you
know, a very handsome man: he is of the order of the Garter,
which greatly adds to an air naturally noble. In short, from
his outward appearance, you would suppose he was really
possessed of some sense; but as soon as ever you hear him
speak, you are perfectly convinced to the contrary. This
passionate lover presented her with a promise of marriage, in
due form, signed with his own hand; she would not, however,
rely upon this; but the next day she thought there could be no
danger, when the Earl himself came to her lodgings attended by
a clergyman, and another man for a witness; the marriage was
accordingly solemnized with all due ceremonies, in the presence
of one of her fellow-players, who attended as a witness on her
part. You will suppose, perhaps, that the new countess had
nothing to do but to appear at court according to her rank, and
to display the earl's arms upon her carriage. This was far from
being the case. When examination was made concerning the
marriage, it was found to be a mere deception: it appeared that
the pretended priest was one of my lord's trumpeters, and the
witness his kettle-drummer. The parson and his companion never
appeared after the ceremony was over; and as for the other
witness, he endeavoured to persuade her that the Sultana Roxana
might have supposed, in some part or other of a play, that she
was really married. It was all to no purpose that the poor
creature claimed the protection of the laws of God and man;
both which were violated and abused, as well as herself, by
this infamous imposition: in vain did she throw herself at the
king's feet to demand justice; she had only to rise up again
without redress; and happy might she think herself to receive
an annuity of one thousand crowns, and to resume the name of
Roxana, instead of Countess of Oxford."[230]

This scoundrel Earl (whose alleged want of sense is extremely probable, and was his best excuse, as well as the worst thing to say for the lady), died full of years and honours, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

In 1664, Mr. Pepys witnessed a scene in the theatre in Portugal Street, which shows the extremity to which the speculation of managers and the curiosity of the British public can go. This was no other than the appearance of an imposter, called the German Princess, in the part of her own character, after having been tried for it at the Old Bailey. She was tried for bigamy, and acquitted; but she had inveigled a young citizen into marriage under pretence of being a German Princess, the citizen pretending at the same time to be a nobleman. The impudence of the thing was completed by the badness of her performance. Granger, however, who appears to have read a vindication of her, which she published, thinks she had great natural abilities.

The following is curious:--4th (Feb. 1666-7).

"Soon as dined," says Pepys, "my wife and I out to the Duke's
playhouse, and there saw Heraclius, an excellent play, to my
extraordinary content; and the more from the house being very
full, and great company; among others Mrs. Stuart,[231] very
fine, with her locks done up in puffes, as my wife calls them:
and several other great ladies had their hair so, though I do
not like it, but my wife do mightily; but it is only because
she sees it is the fashion. Here I saw my Lord Rochester[232]
and his lady, Mrs. Mallet, who hath after all this ado married
him; and, as I hear some say in the pit, it is a great act of
charity, for he hath no estate. But it was pleasant to see how
everybody rose up when my Lord John Butler, the Duke of
Ormond's son, came into the pit, towards the end of the play,
who was a servant to Mrs. Mallett, and now smiled upon her, and
she on him."[233]

One little thinks, now-a-days, in turning into Portugal Street, that all the fashionable world, with the wits and poets, once thronged into that poor-looking thoroughfare, with its bailiffs at one end, and its butchers at the other. The difference, however, between beaux and butchers was not so great at that time as it became afterwards; though none arrogated the praise of high breeding more than the fine gentlemen of Charles II. Next year Pepys speaks of a fray at this house between Harry Killigrew and the Duke of Buckingham, in which the latter beat him, and took away his sword. Another time, according to his account, Rochester beat Tom Killigrew, at the Dutch Ambassador's, and in the King's presence. Blows from people of rank do not appear to have been resented as they would be now.

In the following passage we have an author's first night before us, and that author the gallant Etherege, with dukes and wits about him in the pit. He makes, however, a very different figure in our eyes from what we commonly conceive of him, for he is unsuccessful and complaining.

"My wife," says Pepys, "being gone before (6th Feb. 1667-8), I
to the Duke of York's playhouse, where a new play of
Etheridge's, called 'She would if she could;' and, though I was
there by two o'clock, there was one thousand people put back
that could not have room in the pit; and I at last, because my
wife was there, made shift to get into the 18_d._ box, and
there saw. But Lord! how full was the house, and how silly the
play, there being nothing in the world good in it, and few
people pleased in it. The King was there; but I sat mightily
behind, and could see but little, and hear not at all. The play
being done, I into the pit to look for my wife, it being dark
and raining; but could not find her, and so staid, going
between the two doors and through the pit, an hour and a half,
I think, after the play was done, the people staying there till
the rain was over, and to talk one with another. And among the
rest here was the Duke of Buckingham to-day openly sat in the
pit; and there I found him with my Lord Buckhurst, and Sedley,
and Etheridge the poet; the last of whom I did hear mightily
find fault with the actors, that they were out of humour and
had not their parts perfect, and that Harris did do nothing,
nor could so much as sing a catch in it; and so was mightily
concerned; while all the rest did through the whole pit blame
the play as a silly, dull thing, though there was something
very roguish and witty; but the design of the play and end
mighty insipid. At last I did find my wife."

The ensuing is a specimen of the manners of one of the fine ladies:-

"5th (May, 1668), Creed and I to the Duke of York's playhouse;
and there, coming late, up to the balcony-box, where we find my
Lady Castlemaine (the King's mistress) and several great
ladies; and there we sat with them, and I saw the
'Impertinents' once more than yesterday! and I for that reason
like it, I find, the better too. By Sir Positive At-all I
understand is meant Sir Robert Howard. My lady pretty well
pleased with it; but here I sat close to her fine woman,
Wilson, who indeed is very handsome, but they say with child by
the King. I asked, and she told me this was the first time her
lady had seen it, I having a mind to say something to her. One
thing of familiarity I observed in my Lady Castlemaine; she
called to one of her women, another that sat by this, for a
little patch off of her face, and put it into her mouth and
wetted it, and so clapped it upon her own by the side of her
mouth; I suppose she feeling a pimple rising there."[234]

More manners of this gallant reign. Pepys says he went to see a woman with a great bushy beard, "which pleased him mightily."

"Thence to the Duke's playhouse, and saw 'Macbeth.' The King
and Court there; and we sat just under them and my Lady
Castlemaine, and close to a woman that comes into the pit, a
kind of a loose gossip, that pretends to be like her, and is so
something. And my wife, by my troth, appeared, I think, as
pretty as any of them; I never thought so much before; and so
did Talbot and W. Hewer, as they said, I heard, to one another.
The King and Duke of York minded me, and smiled upon me, at the
handsome woman near me; but it vexed me to see Moll Davies, in
the box over the King and my Lady Castlemaine, look down upon
the King and he up to her; and so did my Lady Castlemaine once
to see who it was; but when she saw Moll Davies, she looked
like fire; which troubled me."[235]

Modes of thinking. Mr. Pepys is of opinion that the "Tempest," which he saw at this house, is an "innocent" play; "no great wit, but yet good above ordinary plays." This appears to have been his general opinion of Shakspeare. That year he says,

"After dinner to the Duke of York's playhouse, and there saw
'Sir Martin Mar-all,' which I have seen so often, and yet am
mightily pleased with it, and think it mighty witty, and the
fullest of proper matter for mirth that was ever writ; and I do
clearly see that they do improve in their acting of it. Here a
mighty company of citizens, 'prentices, and others; and it
makes me observe, that when I began first to be able to bestow
a play on myself, I do not remember that I saw so many by half
of the ordinary 'prentices and mean people in the pit, at 2_s._
6_d._ a piece, as now; I going for several years no higher than
the 12_d._ and then the 18_d._ places, though I strained hard
to go in them when I did: so much the vanity and prodigality of
the age is to be observed in this particular."[236]

What he calls the vanity of the age, was one of the best signs of its advancement. Plays, at the time above mentioned, began as early as they did before the civil wars; and when they were over, people rode out in their coaches to take the air. Our author, when the King visited the theatre, speaks of being there by one o'clock to get a seat. Kynaston, a favourite actor at this house, used to be taken out airing by the ladies, in the dress which he wore as a female. Cibber mentions this particular among others in an entertaining account of Kynaston, whom the ladies do not appear to have spoiled:--

"Though women," he says, "were not admitted to the stage till
the return of King Charles, yet it could not be so suddenly
supplied with them, but that there was still a necessity, for
some time, to put the handsomest young men into petticoats,
which Kynaston was then said to have worn with success;
particularly in the part of Evadne, in the 'Maid's Tragedy,'
which I have heard him speak of; and which calls to my mind a
ridiculous distress that arose from these sort of shifts, which
the stage was then put to. The King, coming a little before his
usual time to a tragedy, found the actors not ready to begin,
when his Majesty, not choosing to have as much patience as his
good subjects, sent to them to know the meaning of it; upon
which the master of the company came to the box, and rightly
judging that the best excuse for their default would be the
true one, fairly told his Majesty that the queen was not
_shaved_ yet: the King, whose good humour loved to laugh at a
jest as well as to make one, accepted the excuse, which served
to divert him till the male queen could be effeminated. In a
word, Kynaston, at that time, was so beautiful a youth, that
the ladies of quality prided themselves in taking him with them
in their coaches to Hyde Park in his theatrical habit, after
the play; which in those days they might have sufficient time
to do, because plays then were used to begin at four o'clock:
the hour that people of the same rank are now going to dinner.
Of this truth I had the curiosity to inquire, and had it
confirmed from his own mouth, in his advanced age: and, indeed,
to the last of him, his handsomeness was very little abated;
even at past sixty his teeth were sound, white and even, as one
would wish to see in a reigning toast of twenty. He had
something of a formal gravity in his mien, which was attributed
to the stately step he had been so early confined to, in a
female decency. But even that, in characters of superiority,
had its proper graces; it misbecame him not in the part of
Leon, in Fletcher's 'Rule a Wife,' &c., which he executed with
a determined manliness, and honest authority, well worth the
best actor's imitation. He had a piercing eye, and, in
characters of heroic life, a quick imperious vivacity in his
tone of voice, that painted the tyrant truly terrible. There
were two plays of Dryden in which he shone with uncommon
lustre; in 'Aurengzebe' he played Morat, and in 'Don
Sebastian,' Muley Moloch; in both these parts he had a fierce,
lion-like majesty in his port and utterance, that gave the
spectator a kind of trembling admiration."[237]