Chapter VII (2)

"23d (October 1667). To the King's playhouse, and saw 'The
Black Prince;' which is now mightily bettered by that long
letter being printed, and so delivered to everybody at their
going in, and some short reference made to it in the play.
[This is in the style of what Buckingham called "insinuating
the plot into the boxes."]

"1st (November 1667). To the King's playhouse, and there saw a
silly play and an old one, 'The Taming of the Shrew.'

"2d (November 1667). To the King's playhouse, and there saw
'Henry the Fourth;' and, contrary to expectation, was pleased
in nothing more than in Cartwright's speaking of Falstaffe's
speech about 'What is honour?' The house full of
parliament-men, it being holyday with them: and it was
observable how a gentleman of good habit sitting just before
us, eating of some fruit in the midst of play, did drop down
as dead, being choked; but with much ado Orange Moll did thrust
her finger down his throat, and brought him to life again.

"26th (December 1667). With my wife to the King's playhouse,
and there saw 'The Surprizall' by Sir Robert Howard, brother of
Ned; which did not please me to-day, the actors not pleasing
me; and especially Nell's acting of a serious part which she
spoils.

"28th (December 1667). To the King's house, and there saw 'The
Mad Couple,' which is but an ordinary play; but only Nell's and
Hart's mad parts are most excellent done, but especially hers:
which makes it a miracle to me to think how ill she do any
serious part, as, the other day, just like a fool or
changeling; and, in a mad part, do beyond all imitation almost.
It pleased us mightily to see the natural affection of a poor
woman, the mother of one of the children brought on the stage;
the child crying, she by force got upon the stage, and took up
her child, and carried it away off the stage from Hart. Many
fine faces here to-day.

"7th (January 1667-8). To the Nursery [qy. in Barbican, for
children performers?], but the house did not act to-day; and so
I to the other two playhouses, into the pit to gaze up and
down, and there did, by this means, for nothing, see an act in
'The Schoole of Compliments' at the Duke of York's house, and
'Henry the Fourth' at the King's house; but not liking either
of the plays, I took my coach again, and home. [It would here
seem, that a man who did not choose to pay for a _seat_, might
witness a play for nothing.]

"11th (January 1667-8). To the King's house, to see 'The
Wild-Goose Chase' (Beaumont and Fletcher's). In this play I met
with nothing extraordinary at all, but very dull inventions and
designs. Knipp came and sat by us, and her talk pleased me a
little, she telling me how Miss Davies is for certain going
away from the Duke's house, the King being in love with her;
and a house is taken for her, and furnishing; and she hath a
ring given her already worth 600_l._: that the King did send
several times for Nelly, and she was with him; and I am sorry
for it, and can hope for no good to the state from having a
prince so devoted to his pleasure. She told me also of a play
shortly coming upon the stage, of Sir Charles Sedley's, which,
she thinks, will be called 'The Wandering Lady's,' a comedy
that she thinks will be most pleasant; and also another play
called 'The Duke of Lorane;' besides 'Cataline,' which she
thinks, for want of the clothes which the King promised them,
will not be acted for a good while.

"20th (February 1667-8). Dined, and by one o'clock to the
King's house; a new play, 'The Duke of Lerma,' of Sir Robert
Howard's, where the King and court was; and Knipp and Nell
spoke the prologue most excellently, especially Knipp, who
spoke beyond any creature I ever heard. The play designed to
reproach our King with his mistresses, that I was troubled for
it, and expected it should be interrupted; but it ended all
well; which salved me.

"27th (February 1667-8.) With my wife to the King's house, to
see 'The Virgin Martyr' by (Massinger), the first time it hath
been acted a great while: and it is mighty pleasant; not that
the play is worth much, but it is finely acted by Beck
Marshall. But that which did please me beyond anything in the
world, was the wind-musique when the angel comes down; which is
so sweet that it ravished me, and, indeed, in a word, did wrap
up my soul so that it made me really sick, just as I have
formerly been when in love with my wife; that neither then, nor
all the evening going home, and at home, I was able to think of
anything, but remained all night transported, so as I could not
believe that ever any musique hath that real command over the
soul of a man, as this did upon me; and makes me resolve to
practise wind-musique, and to make my wife do the like.
[Pepys's use of the word "sick," and his resolution to make his
wife practise the hautboy, are very ludicrous. His love of
music, however, is genuine. He was an amateur composer. On the
23d Feb. 1666, he has the following memorandum: "Comes Mrs.
Knipp to see my wife, and I spent all the night talking with
this baggage, and teaching her my song of 'Beauty retire,'
which she sings and makes go most rarely, and a very fine song
it seems to be."]

"6th (March 1667-8.) After dinner to the King's house, and
there saw part of the 'Discontented Colonell' (Sir John
Suckling's 'Brennoralt').

"7th (April 1668). To the King's house, and there saw 'The
English Monsieur,' (sitting for privacy sake in an upper box):
the play hath much mirth in it, as to that particular humour.
After the play done, I down to Knipp, and did stay her
undressing herself; and there saw the several players, men and
women, go by; and pretty to see how strange they are all, one
to another, after the play is done. Here I hear Sir W. Davenant
is just now dead, and so, who will succeed him in the
mastership of the house is not yet known. The eldest Davenport
is, it seems, gone from this house to be kept by somebody;
which I am glad of, she being a very bad actor. Mrs. Knipp
tells me that my Lady Castlemaine is mighty in love with Hart
of their house, and he is much with her in private, and she
goes to him and do give him many presents; and that the thing
is most certain, and Beck Marshall only privy to it, and the
means of bringing them together: which is a very odd thing; and
by this means she is even with the King's love to Mrs. Davies.

"28th (April 1668). To the King's house, and there did see
'Love in a Maze,' (the author is not mentioned in Baker);
wherein very good mirth of Lacy the clown, and Wintershell, the
country-knight, his master.

"1st (May 1668). To the King's playhouse, and there saw the
'Surprizall;' and a disorder in the pit by its raining in from
the cupola at top.

"7th (May 1668). To the King's house; where going in for Knipp,
the play being done, I did see Beck Marshall come dressed off
of the stage, and look mighty fine, and pretty and noble; and
also Nell in her boy's clothes mighty pretty. But lord! their
confidence, and how many men do hover about them as soon as
they come off the stage, and how confident they are in their
talk. Here was also Haynes, the incomparable dancer of the
King's house.

"16th (May 1668). To the King's playhouse, and there saw the
best part of 'The Sea Voyage' (Beaumont and Fletcher), where
Knipp did her part of sorrow very well.

"18th (May 1668). It being almost twelve o'clock, or little
more, to the King's playhouse, where the doors were not then
open; but presently they did open, and we in, and find many
people already come in by private ways into the pit, it being
the first day of Sir Charles Sedley's new play so long
expected 'The Mulberry Garden,' of whom, being so reputed a
wit, all the world do expect great matters. I having sat here a
while and eat nothing to-day, did slip out, getting a boy to
keep my place; and to the Rose Tavern (Will's, in Russell
Street), and there got half a breast of mutton off the spit,
and dined all alone. And so to the playhouse again, where the
King and Queene by and by come, and all the court, and the
house infinitely full. But the play, when it come, though there
was here and there a pretty saying, and that not very many
neither, yet the whole of the play had nothing extraordinary in
it at all, neither of language nor design; insomuch that the
King I did not see laugh nor pleased from the beginning to the
end, nor the company; insomuch that I have not been less
pleased at a new play in my life, I think.

"30th (May 1668). To the King's playhouse, and there saw
'Philaster;' where it is pretty to see how I could remember
almost all along, ever since I was a boy, Arethusa, the part
which I was to have acted at Sir Robert Cooke's; and it was
very pleasant to me, but more to think what a ridiculous thing
it would have been for me to have acted a beautiful woman.

"22nd (June 1668). To the King's playhouse, and saw an act or
two of the new play, 'Evening Love' again (Dryden's) but like
it not.

"11th (July 1668). To the King's playhouse, to see an old play
of Shirley's, called 'Hyde Parke,' the first day acted; where
horses are brought upon the stage; but it is but a very
moderate play, only an excellent epilogue spoken by Beck
Marshall.

"31st (July 1668). To the King's house, to see the first day of
Lacy's 'Monsieur Ragou,' now new acted. The King and court all
there, and mighty merry: a farce.

"15th (September 1668). To the King's playhouse to see a new
play, acted but yesterday, a translation out of French by
Dryden, called 'The Ladys à la Mode' [probably the Precieuses,
but not translated by Dryden]: so mean a thing as when they
came to say it would be acted again to-morrow, both he that
said it (Beeston) and the pit fell a-laughing.

"19th (September 1668). To the King's playhouse, and there saw
the 'Silent Woman;' the best comedy, I think, that ever was
wrote: and sitting by Shadwell the poet, he was big with
admiration of it. Here was my Lord Brouncker and W. Pen and
their ladies in the box, being grown mighty kind of a sudden;
but, God knows, it will last but a little while, I dare swear.
Knipp did her part mighty well.

"28th (September 1668). To the King's playhouse, and there saw
'The City Match' (by Jasper Maine), not acted these thirty
years, and but a silly play; the King and court there; the
house, for the women's sake, mighty full.

"14th (October 1668). To the King's playhouse, and there saw
'The Faithful Shepherdess' (Fletcher's), that I might hear the
French eunuch sing; which I did to my great content; though I
do admire his actions as much as his acting, being both beyond
all I ever saw or heard.

"2nd (December 1678). So she (Mrs. Pepys) and I to the King's
playhouse, and there saw 'The Usurper;' a pretty good play in
all but what is designed to resemble Cromwell and Hugh Peters,
which is mighty silly. [The Usurper was by Ned Howard, who
seems to have wished to show how impartial he could be.]

"19th (December 1678). My wife and I by hackney to the King's
playhouse, and there, the pit being full, sat in the box above,
and saw 'Cataline's Conspiracy' (Ben Jonson's), yesterday being
the first day: a play of much good sense and words to read, but
that do appear the worst upon the stage, I mean the least
diverting, that ever I saw any, though most fine in clothes;
and a fine scene of the senate and of a fight as ever I saw in
my life. We sat next to Betty Hall, that did belong to this
house, and was Sir Philip Howard's mistress; a mighty pretty
wench.

"7th (January 1668-9). My wife and I to the King's playhouse,
and there saw 'The Island Princesse' (Beaumont and Fletcher's),
the first time I ever saw it; and it is a pretty good play,
many good things being in it, and a good scene of a town on
fire. We sat in an upper box, and the merry Jade Nell came in
and sat in the next box; a bold slut, who lay laughing there
upon people, and with a comrade of hers, of the Duke's house,
that came to see the play.

"11th (January 1668-9). Abroad with my wife to the King's
playhouse, and there saw 'The Joviall Crew' (by Richard Brome),
ill acted to what it was in Clun's time, and when Lacy could
dance.

"19th (January 1668-9). To the King's house to see 'Horace'
(translated from Corneille by Charles Cotton); this is the
third day of its acting; a silly tragedy; but Lacy hath made a
farce of several dances--between each act one; but his words
are but silly, and invention not extraordinary as to the
dances. [Pepys adds, with seeming approbation, an instance of
satire on the Dutch, too gross to extract, and highly
disgraceful to that age of "fine ladies and gentlemen."]

"2nd (February 1668-9). To dinner at noon, where I find Mr.
Sheres; and there made a short dinner, and carried him with us
to the King's playhouse, where 'The Heyresse,' notwithstanding
Kynaston's being beaten, is acted; and they say the King is
very angry with Sir Charles Sedley for his being beaten, but he
do deny it. But his part is done by Beeston, who is fain to
read it out of a book all the while, and thereby spoils the
part, and almost the play, it being one of the best parts in
it: and though the design is, in the first conception of it,
pretty good, yet it is but an indifferent play; wrote, they
say, by my Lord Newcastle. But it was pleasant to see Beeston
come in with others, supposing it to be dark, and yet forced to
read his part by the light of the candles; and this I observing
to a gentleman, that sat by me, he was mightily pleased
therewith and spread it up and down. But that that pleased me
most in the play, is the first song that Knipp sings (she sings
three or four); and indeed it was very finely sung, so as to
make the whole house clap her.

"6th (February 1668-9). To the King's playhouse, and there in
an upper box (where come in Colonel Poynton and Doll Stacey,
who is very fine, and by her wedding-ring I suppose he hath
married her at last), did see the 'Moor of Venice:' but ill
acted in most parts. Moon (which did a little surprise me) not
acting Iago's part by much so well as Clun used to do: nor
another Hart's, which was Cassio's; nor indeed Burt doing the
Moor's so well as I once thought he did.

"9th (February 1668-9). To the King's playhouse, and there saw
the 'Island Princesse,' which I like mighty well as an
excellent play; and here we find Kynaston to be well enough to
act again; which he do very well, after his beating by Sir
Charles Sedley's appointment. [Kynaston is generally supposed
to have been taken for Sedley, and beaten for some offence of
the baronet's. He affected to be Sedley's double.]

"26th (February 1668-9). To the King's playhouse, and saw the
'Faithful Shepherdesse.' But, lord! what an empty house, there
not being, as I could see the people, so many as to make up
above 10_l._ in the whole house! But I plainly discern the
musick is the better, by how much the house the emptier." [The
same thing was said by the great Handel, to console himself
once, when he found a spare audience.]

Of the performers mentioned in this curious theatrical gossip, one of them, Hart, had been a captain in the civil wars; another, Mohun, a major; and there was a third a quarter-master; all on the royal side. Hart and Mohun were old actors, when Betterton was young; and they lived to see him reckoned superior to either. The two were accustomed to act together, Hart generally in the superior character, as Brutus to the other's Cassius; and both, like Betterton, acted in comedy as well as tragedy. They performed, for instance, Manly and Horner in 'The Country Wife,' and there appears to have been less distinction in their styles of acting than is customary. If Hart shone in the Dorimant of 'Sir Fopling Flutter,' Mohun was highly applauded in Davenant's Valentine, in 'Wit without Money.' Mohun, however, appears to have excelled in the more ferocious parts of tragedy, as Catiline; and Hart in the mixture of gaity with boldness, as in Hotspur and Alexander. His Alexander was particularly famous. Upon the whole, we should conclude, Mohun's to have the more artificial acting of the two, more like "the actor," in Partridge's sense of the word, but very fine nevertheless, otherwise Rochester would hardly have admired him, as he is said to have done; unless, indeed, it was out of spite to some other actor; for he was much influenced by feelings of that kind. Perhaps, however, it was out of some chance predilection, The Duke of Buckingham is said to have preferred Ben Jonson to Shakspeare, for no other reason than his having been introduced to him when a boy. The best compliment ever known to have been paid to Hart, is an anecdote recorded of Betterton. Betterton acted Alexander after Hart's time; and "being at a loss," says Davies, "to recover a particular emphasis of that performer, which gave a force to some interesting situation of the part, he applied for information to the players who stood near him. At last, one of the lowest of the company repeated the line exactly in Hart's key. Betterton thanked him heartily, and put a piece of money into his hand, as a reward for so acceptable a service."[253] Hart had the reputation of being the first lover of Nell Gwyn, and one of the hundreds of the Duchess of Cleveland.

Goodman was another of the favoured many. He was one of the Alexanders of his time, but does not appear to have been a great actor. He was a dashing impudent fellow, who boasted of his having taken "an airing" on the road to recruit his purse. He was expelled from Cambridge for cutting and defacing the portrait of the Duke of Monmouth, Chancellor of the University, but not loyal enough to his father to please Goodman. James II. pardoned the loyal highwayman, which Goodman (in Cibber's hearing) said "was doing him so particular an honour, that no man could wonder if his acknowledgement had carried him a little further than ordinary into the interest of that prince. But as he had lately been out of luck in backing his old master, he had now no way to get home the life he was out, upon his account, but by being under the same obligations to King William."[254] The meaning of this is understood to be, that Goodman offered to assassinate William, in consequence of his having had a pardon from James; but the plot not succeeding, he turned king's evidence against James, in order to secure a pardon from William. This "pretty fellow" was latterly so easy in his circumstances, owing, it is supposed, to the delicate Cleveland, that he used to say he would never act Alexander the Great, but when he was certain that "his duchess" would be in the boxes to see him.

The stage in that day was certainly not behind-hand with the court; and as it had less conventional respectability in the eyes of the world, its private character was never so low. But we must do justice and not confound even the disreputable. Poor Nell Gwynn, in a quarrel with one of the Marshalls, who reproached her with being the mistress of Lord Buckhurst, said she was mistress but of one man at a time, though she had been brought up in a bad house "to fill strong waters to the gentlemen;" whereas her rebuker, though a clergyman's daughter, was the mistress of three. This celebrated actress, who was as excellent in certain giddy parts of comedy as she was inferior in tragedy, was small of person, but very pretty, with a good-humoured face, and eyes that winked when she laughed. She is the ancestress of the ducal family of St. Albans, who are thought to have retained more of the look and complexion of Charles II. than any other of his descendants. Beauclerc, Johnson's friend, was like him; and the black complexion is still in vigour. The King recommended her to his brother with his last breath, begging him "not to let poor Nelly starve." Burnet says she was introduced to the King by Buckingham, to supplant the Duchess of Cleveland; but others tell us, he first noticed her in consequence of a hat of the circumference of a coach-wheel, in which Dryden made her deliver a prologue, as a set-off to an enormous hat of Pistol's at the other house, and which convulsed the spectators with laughter. If Nelly retained a habit of swearing, which was probably taught her when a child (and it is clear enough from Pepys that she did), the poets did not discourage her. One of her epilogues by Dryden began in the following startling manner. It is entitled "An Epilogue spoken by Mrs. Ellen, when she was to be carried off dead by the Bearers."

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

The poet makes her say of herself, in the course of the lines, that she was "a harmless little devil," and that she was slatternly in her dress. Lely painted her with a lamb under her arm. Mr. Pegge discovered that Charles made her a lady of the chamber to his queen. Pennant seems to think this was only a title; but it is plain from Evelyn's Memoirs that she had apartments in Whitehall.[255] She died a few years after the King, at her house in Pall Mall. Nell was much libelled in her time, and among others by Sir George Etherege;[256] very likely out of some personal pique or rejection, for such revenges were quite compatible with the "loves" of that age.[257] But she was a general favourite, nevertheless, owing to a natural good-heartedness which no course of life could overcome. Burnet's character of her is well known. "Guin," says he, "the indiscreetest and wildest creature that ever was in a court, continued, to the end of that king's life, in great favour and was maintained at a vast expense. The Duke of Buckingham told me that when she was first brought to the King, she asked only five hundred pounds a year; and the King refused it. But when he told me this, about four years after, he said, she had got of the King above sixty thousand pounds. She acted all persons in so lively a manner, and was such a constant diversion to the King, that even a new mistress could not drive her away. But after all he never treated her with the decencies of a mistress."[258] Nell Gwynn is said to have suggested to her royal lover the building of Chelsea Hospital, and to have made him a present of the ground for it.

Upon the whole the dramatic taste during the greater part of Charles's reign was false and artificial, particularly in tragedy. Etherege produced one good comedy, the precursor of Wycherly and Congreve; but Dryden, the reigning favourite, was not as great in dramatic as he was in other writing; his heroic plays, and Lee's "Alexander," were admired, not so much for the beauties mixed with their absurdity, as for the improbable air they gave to a serious passion; and the favourite plays of deceased authors were those of the most equivocal writers of the time of James, not the pure and profound nature of Shakspeare and his fellows. Otway flourished, but was not thought so great as he is now; and even in Otway there is a hot bullying smack of the tavern, very different from the voluptuousness in Shakspeare. Towards the close of this reign comedy came to its height with Wycherly, who, almost as profligate in point of dialogue as any of his contemporaries, nevertheless hit the right vein of satire. Wycherly lived at the other end of Russell Street, in Bow Street, where we shall see him shortly.

We are now come to the time of Congreve, Mrs. Bracegirdle, and others; Betterton remaining. Of these individually we have spoken before; and therefore shall only observe that by the more serious examples of James II. and King William, the manners of the day were reforming, and those of the stage with them. We now find ourselves among audiences more composed, and witness plays less coarse, though with an abundance of double meaning and exuberantly witty. Coquetry and fashion are now the reigning stage goddesses, as mere wantonness was that of the age preceding.

Farquhar and Vanbrugh succeeded, together with Cibber, Wilkes, Booth, and latterly Steele and Mrs. Oldfield. Vanbrugh does not belong to Drury Lane, but Farquhar does, with the rest; and a lively place he made of it. He is _Captain_ Farquhar, has a plume in his hat, and prodigious animal spirits, with invention at will, and great good nature. Captains abounded among the wits and adventurers of those days down to Captains Macheath and Gibbet. Vanbrugh was a captain; Steele at one time was Captain Steele; and Mrs. Oldfield's father, though the son of a vinter, became Captain Oldfield, and genteelly ran out an estate. This is still the age of genuine comedy, and the stage is worthy of it. The tragedy was proportionably bad. Booth, indeed, was a good tragic actor, but he suited the age in being declamatory. He was the hero of Addison's Cato, once the favourite tragedy of the critics, now of nobody.

Rowe was another artificial writer of tragedy, but not without a vein of feeling. It seems to have been thought in those times, as we may see by these authors, and by the tragedies of Banks and Lillo, that to be natural, an author was to be prosaical; while, if he had any pretensions to be poetical, it was his business to--

"---- wake the soul by tender strokes of _art_."

The gradual approach, also, of this period to our own times, which are more critical in costume, and the pictures left to us of favourite performers in Hamlet and Hermione, dressed in wigs and hoop petticoats, render those outrages upon propriety still stranger to one's imagination. They set tragedy in a mock-heroical light. Cato wore a long peruke; Alexander the Great a wig and jack-boots; and it was customary, down to Garrick's time, to dress Macbeth and other tragic general-officers in a suit of brick-dust. "Booth enters," says Pope:--

---- "Hark, the universal peal!
But has he spoken? Not a syllable.
What shook the stage and made the people stare?
Cato's long wig, flowered gown, and lackered chair."

The stare was not that of ridicule, but of admiration. All this makes the comedy of that period shine out the more as the only truth extant. Cherry, and Archer, and Sir Harry Wildair, and Sir John Brute, and my Lady Betty Modish, were like the age, and like the performers.

To return to these. Wilks was the fine gentleman of that period. He was a friend of Farquhar's, and came to London with him from Dublin. Cibber, though he wrote a good comedy, would appear, by some accounts of him, to have been little more on the stage than a mimic of past actors. Steele, however, has a criticism on him and Wilks, in which he speaks of them both as perfect actors in their kinds.

"Wilks," he tells us, "has a singular talent in representing
the graces of nature; Cibber the deformity in the affectation
of them. Were I a writer of plays, I should never employ either
of them in parts which had not their bents this way. This is
seen in the inimitable strain and run of good humour which is
kept up in the character of Wildair, and in the nice and
delicate abuse of understanding in that of Sir Novelty. Cibber,
in another light, hits exquisitely the _flat_ civility of an
affected gentleman usher, and Wilks the easy frankness of a
gentleman.... To beseech gracefully, to approach respectfully,
to pity, to mourn, to love, are the places wherein Wilks may be
made to shine with the utmost beauty. To rally pleasantly, to
scorn artfully, to flatter, to ridicule, and to neglect, are
what Cibber would perform with no less excellence."[259]

This criticism produced a letter to Steele from two inferior actors of that time, Bullock and Penkethman, who, rather than not be noticed at all, were willing to be bantered. They knew it would be done good-naturedly. Accordingly the "Tatler" says,

"For the information of posterity I shall comply with this
letter, and set these two great men in such a light as Sallust
has placed his Cato and Cæsar. Mr. William Bullock and Mr.
William Penkethman are of the same age, profession, and sex.
They both distinguish themselves in a very particular manner
under the discipline of the crab tree, with this only
difference, that Mr. Bullock has the more agreeable squall, and
Mr. Penkethman the more graceful shrug. Penkethman devours cold
chick with great applause; Bullock's talent lies chiefly in
asparagus. Penkethman is very dexterous at conveying himself
under a table; Bullock is no less active at jumping over a
stick. Mr. Penkethman has a great deal of money; but Mr.
Bullock is the taller man."[260]

Off the stage, and behind the scenes, Cibber performed the part of a coxcomb of the first order. We shall not be properly acquainted with Drury Lane at this period if we do not repeat his story of the wig.

This was a peruke of his, famous in the part of Sir Fopling Flutter. It was so much admired, that Cibber used to have it brought upon the stage in a sedan, and put it on publicly, to the great content of the beholders. A set of curls so applauded was the next thing to a toast; and accordingly Colonel, then Mr. Brett, whom the toasts admired, could not rest till he had taken possession of it.

"The first view," says Colley, "that fires the head of a young
gentleman of this modish ambition, just broke loose from
business, is to cut a figure (as they call it) in a side box at
the play, from whence their next step is to the green-room
behind the scenes, sometimes their _non ultra_. Hither at last,
then, in this hopeful quest of his fortune, came this
gentleman-errant, not doubting but the fickle dame, while he
was thus qualified to receive her, might be tempted to fall
into his lap. And though, possibly, the charms of our
theatrical nymphs might have their share in drawing him
thither; yet, in my observation, the most visible cause of his
first coming was a more sincere passion he had conceived for a
fair full-bottomed periwig, which I then wore in my first play
of the 'Fool in Fashion,' in the year 1695. For it is to be
noted that the _beaux_ of those days were of a quite different
cast to the modern stamp, and had more of the stateliness of
the peacock in their mien, than (which now seems to be their
highest emulation) the pert of a lapwing. Now, whatever
contempt philosophers may have for a fine periwig, my friend,
who was not to despise the world, but to live in it, knew very
well, that so material an article of dress upon the head of a
man of sense, if it became him, could never fail of drawing to
him a more partial regard and benevolence than could possibly
be hoped for in an ill-made one. This, perhaps, may soften the
grave censure which so youthful a purchase might otherwise have
laid upon him. In a word, he made his attack upon this periwig,
as your young fellows generally do for a lady of pleasure;
first, by a few familiar praises of her person, and then a
civil inquiry into the price of it. But on his observing me a
little surprised at the levity of his question about a fop's
periwig, he began to rally himself with so much wit and humour
upon the folly of his fondness for it, that he struck me with
an equal desire of granting anything in my power to oblige so
facetious a customer. This singular beginning of our
conversation, and the mutual laughs that ensued upon it, ended
in an agreement to finish our bargain that night over a
bottle."[261]

Colonel Brett, being a man of "_bonnes fortunes_," married Savage's mother!

Mrs. Oldfield made such an impression in her day, and has been noticed by so many writers, that she must have a passage to herself. She was the daughter of Captain Oldfield above-mentioned, and went to live with her aunt, who kept the Mitre tavern in St. James's Market. Here, we are told, Captain Farquhar, overhearing Miss Nancy read a play behind the bar, was so struck "with the proper emphasis and agreeable turn she gave to each character, that he swore the girl was cut out for the stage." As she had always expressed an inclination for that way of life, and a desire of trying her fortune in it, her mother, on this encouragement, the next time she saw Captain Vanbrugh (afterwards Sir John), who had a great respect for the family, acquainted him with Captain Farquhar's opinion, on which he desired to know whether her bent was most tragedy or comedy. Miss, being called in, informed him that her principal inclination was to the latter, having at that time gone through all Beaumont and Fletcher's comedies; and the play she was reading when Captain Farquhar dined there having been 'The Scornful Lady.' Captain Vanbrugh, shortly after, recommended her to Mr. Christopher Rich, who took her into the house at the allowance of fifteen shillings per week. However, her agreeable figure and sweetness of voice soon gave her the preference, in the opinion of the whole town, to all the young actresses of that time; and the Duke of Bedford, in particular, being pleased to speak to Mr. Rich in her favour, he instantly raised her to twenty shillings per week. After which her fame and salary gradually increased, till at length they both attained that height which her merit entitled her to.[262]

The new actress had a silver voice, a beautiful face and person, great good-nature, sprightliness, and grace, and became the fine lady of the stage in the most agreeable sense of the word. She also acted heroines of the sentimental order, and had an original part in every play of Steele. But she was particularly famous in the part of Lady Betty Modish, in "_The Careless Husband_." The name explains the character. Cibber tells us that he drew many of the strokes in it from her lively manner.

"Had her birth," he says, "placed her in a higher rank of life,
she had certainly appeared in reality what in this play she
only excellently acted, an agreeable gay woman of quality, a
little too conscious of her natural attractions. I have often
seen her in private societies, where women of the best rank
might have borrowed some part of their behaviour, without the
least diminution of their sense or dignity. And this very
morning, where I am now writing, at the Bath, November 11th,
1738, the same words were said of her by a lady of condition,
whose better judgment of her personal merit in that light has
emboldened me to repeat them. After her success in this
character of higher life, all that nature had given her of the
actress seemed to have risen to its full perfection: but the
variety of her power could not be known till she was seen in a
variety of characters, which, as fast as they fell to her, she
equally excelled in. Authors had much more from her performance
than they had reason to hope for, from what they had written
for her; and none had less than another, but as their genius,
in the parts they allotted her, was more or less elevated.

"In the wearing of her person she was particularly fortunate;
her figure was always improving to her thirty-sixth year; but
her excellence in acting was never at a stand; and the last new
character she shone in (Lady Townly) was a proof that she was
still able to do more, if more could have been done for _her_.
She had one mark of good sense, rarely known in any actor of
either sex but herself. I have observed several, with promising
dispositions, very desirous of instruction at their first
setting out; but no sooner had they found their best account in
it, than they were as desirous of being left to their own
capacity, which they then thought would be disgraced by their
seeming to want any farther assistance. But this was not Mrs.
Oldfield's way of thinking; for to the last year of her life
she never undertook any part she liked, without being
importunately desirous of having all the helps in it that
another could possibly give her. By knowing so much herself,
she found how much more there was of nature yet needful to be
known.

"Yet it was a hard matter to give her any hint, that she was
not able to take or improve. With all this merit, she was
tractable, and less presuming in her station than several that
had not half her pretensions to be troublesome. But she lost
nothing by her easy conduct; she had everything she asked,
which she took care should be always reasonable, because she
hated as much to be grudged as denied a civility. Upon her
extraordinary action in the '_Provoked Husband_,' the managers
made her a present of fifty guineas more than her agreement,
which never was more than a verbal one; for they knew she was
above deserting them to engage upon any other stage, and she
was conscious they would never think it their interest to give
her cause of complaint. In the last two months of her illness,
when she was no longer able to assist them, she declined
receiving her salary, though by her agreement she was entitled
to it. Upon the whole she was, to the last scene she acted, the
delight of her spectators."[263]

This charming actress (Mrs. Oldfield) is said to have been the Flavia of "_The Tatler_" (No. 212). The catch-penny writer of her memoirs equivocally speaks of it as her "_vera effigies_," and on his authority the assertion has been repeated. But as a Flavia mentioned in the same work (No. 239) turns out to be Miss Osborne, afterwards the wife of Bishop Atterbury (upon whom he wrote the lines on a fan there inserted, beginning

"Flavia the least and slightest toy
Can with resistless art employ,")

and as the first Flavia is praised for her quality and the extreme simplicity of her manners (which, according to Cibber, was not exactly one of the charms of Mrs. Oldfield,) the supposition, we think, falls to the ground. We need have less hesitation in admitting that Steele, who knew her well, alludes to her in another paper under her favourite title of Lady Betty Modish. Speaking of the effects of love upon a generous temper, in refining the manners, he says, "There is Colonel Ranter, who never spoke without an oath until he saw the Lady Betty Modish, now never gives his man an order, but it is, 'Pray, Tom, do it.' The drawers where he drinks live in perfect happiness. He asked Will at the George the other day, how he did? Where he used to say, 'Damn it, it is so;' he now 'believes there is some mistake; he must confess, he is of another opinion; but, however, he will not insist.'"[264] This Colonel Ranter is supposed by the commentators to have been Brigadier-General Churchill, one of the Marlborough family, who lived with Mrs. Oldfield after the death of Mr. Maynwaring. Steele elsewhere speaks of a "General" (supposed to be the same) "weeping for her, in the character of Indiana in his '_Conscious Lovers_;'" upon which he said Mr. Wilks observed (for he had made all the fine gentlemen tender) that the General "would fight ne'er the worse for that."

Mrs. Oldfield's position in life was singular. With all her beauty and attraction, and the license of stage manners, she is understood to have attached herself but to two persons successively, and on the footing of a wife. The first was Mr. Maynwaring, a celebrated Whig writer, to whom one of the volumes of "The Spectator" is dedicated, and by whom she had a son; and, after his death, she lived with General Churchill, by whom she had a son also. "She left," says '_The General Biography_,' "the bulk of her substance to her son Maynwaring, from whose father she had received it; without neglecting, however, her other son Churchill, and her own relations."

During the period of these two connections, Mrs. Oldfield appears to have been received into the first circles, where she is described as being a pattern of good behaviour; and yet the feeling of Mr. Maynwaring's friends against the connection was so strong, that she herself, though she is understood to have had a sincere affection for him, is said to have often remonstrated with him against it as injurious to his interest. Marriage with an actress, though the example had been set by a duke, appears in neither case to have been thought of. The feeling of society seems to have been this:--"Here is a woman bred up to the stage, and passing her life upon it. It is therefore impossible she should marry a gentleman of family; and yet, as her behaviour would otherwise deserve it, and the examples of actresses are of no authority for any one but themselves, some license may be allowed to a woman who diverts us so agreeably, who attracts the society of the wits, and is so capital a dresser. We will treat her profession with contempt, but herself with consideration." Upon these curious grounds Mrs. Oldfield lived in every respect like a woman of fashion, and as she became rich (which was, perhaps, not the least of her recommendations), she was admitted into the best society, and went to court. The pretence among her visitors during both her connections probably was, that she was privately married; but she was too sincere to warrant the deception. The Princess of Wales (afterwards queen of George II.) asked her one day at a levee if her marriage with General Churchill was true. "So it is said, may it please your highness, but we have not owned it yet."--"It may appear singular," says Mr. Chalmers, who tells us this story, "to quote the late pious Sir James Stonhouse for anecdotes of Mrs. Oldfield; yet in one of his letters we are informed, that she always went to the house in the same dress she had worn at dinner in her visits to the houses of great people; for she was much caressed on account of her professional merit and her connection with Mr. Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough's brother; that she used to go to the playhouse in a chair, attended by two footmen; that she seldom spoke to any one of the actors; and was allowed a sum of money to buy her own clothes."[265] Mrs. Oldfield's generosity was much admired in giving a pension to Savage, which he received regularly as long as she lived. This is what has given posterity a liking for her. When she died she lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and her funeral in Westminster Abbey was attended by several noblemen, among others, as pall-bearers. Mr. Chalmers has repeated, with other biographers, that, "at her own desire," she was elegantly dressed in her coffin; on which account, it is added, Pope introduced her in the character of Narcissa:

"Odious! in wollen! 'twould a saint provoke,
(Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke);
No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace
Wrap my cold limbs and shade my lifeless face:
One would not sure be frightful when one's dead--
And, Betty, give this cheek a little red."

But it does not appear that there is any authority for this speech, except the poet's. A letter written to her first biographer by an attendant during her last illness says, that "although she had no priest," she "prayed without ceasing," which does not look like an attention to dress; but the biographer adds, that "as the nicety of dress was her delight when living, she was as nicely dressed after her decease; being, by Mrs. Saunders' direction, thus laid in her coffin." The nicety here mentioned was, to be sure, "mortal fine."--"She had on," says the writer, "a very fine Brussels lace-head, a Holland shift with tucker, and double ruffles of the same lace; a pair of new kid gloves, and her body wrapt up in a winding sheet."[266] Yet we are of Montaigne's opinion, and know not why death should be rendered more melancholy than it is. When a tomb was opened in Greece, supposed to be that of Aspasia, there was found in it a sprig of myrtle in gold.

The next batch of players, with Garrick at their head, are Quin, Macklin, Barry, King, Woodward, Gentleman Smith, and others; with Mrs. Clive, Pritchard, Cibber, and Woffington. Garrick's later contemporaries are Parsons, Dodd, Quick, the Palmers, Miss Pope, Mrs. Abingdon, and others, who bring us down to Mrs. Siddons, Miss Farren, &c., the commencers of our own time. Of Steele and the sentimental comedy we need say no more. Goldsmith belongs to Covent Garden; Foote to the Haymarket; and Cumberland, though an elegant writer, does not call for any particular mention in an abstract like this.

When Garrick first appeared, a declamatory grandeur prevailed in tragedy, which we conceive to have arisen in the time of Charles II. It was probably handed down by Booth; and imitated, with the usual deterioration, from Betterton, who, though a true genius and a universal one, may not have been uncorrupted by the taste of the times; not to mention that it is doubtful, till Garrick appeared, whether the art of acting was not identified with something too much of an art, and the delicacy of verses expected to partake more of recitation and musical accompaniment than we now look for. Our suspicion to this effect arises from the traditional habits of the stage, one generation handing down the manner of another, and Betterton himself having been educated in the school of those who were bred up in the recollection of Burbage and Condell. Shakspeare himself, from custom, or even from some subtlety of reason, might have approved of something of this kind; though, on the other hand, in the celebrated directions of Hamlet to the players, there appears to be a secret dissatisfaction with the most applauded actors of that time, as not being exactly what was desirable. If this notion is just, and the great poet of nature was as much advanced beyond his time in this as in other respects, he might indeed have hailed such an actor as Garrick, however hyperbolically they have been sometimes put together. The best performers whom Garrick found in possession of public applause, though some of them are described as excelling in all the varieties of passion (as Mrs. Cibber, for instance, notwithstanding the different impression given of her in the following quotation), appear to have been more or less of the old declamatory school. Quin in particular, then at the head of the profession, was an avowed declaimer, having the same notions of tragedy in the delivery which his friend Thomson had in the composition. Posterity respects Quin as the friend of Thomson, and laughs with him as an epicure and a wit. Garrick and he ultimately became friends. Of the first reception of the new style introduced by Garrick, its electrical effects upon some, and the natural hesitation of others to give up their old favourites, a lively picture has been left us by Cumberland.

Speaking of himself, who was then at Westminster school, he says,--

"I was once or twice allowed to go, under proper convoy, to the
play, where, for the first time in my life, I was treated by
the sight of Garrick in the character of Lothario. Quin played
Horatio; Ryan, Altamont; Mrs. Cibber, Calista; and Mrs.
Pritchard condescended to the humble part of Lavinia. I enjoyed
a good view of the stage from the front row of the gallery, and
my attention was rivetted to the scene. I have the spectacle
even now, as it were, before my eyes. Quin presented himself,
upon the rising of the curtain, in a green velvet coat,
embroidered down the seams, an enormous full-bottomed periwig,
rolled stockings, and high-heeled, square-toed shoes. With very
little variation of cadence, and in a deep, full tone,
accompanied by a sawing kind of action, which had more of the
senate than of the stage in it, he rolled out his heroics with
an air of dignified indifference, that seemed to disdain the
plaudits that were bestowed upon him. Mrs. Cibber, in a key
high pitched, but sweet withal, sung, or rather recitatived,
Rowe's harmonious strain, something in the manner of the
improvisatore's; it was so extremely wanting in contrast, that,
though it did not wound the ear, it wearied it; when she had
once recited two or three speeches, I could anticipate the
manner of every succeeding one; it was like a long, old,
legendary ballad of innumerable stanzas, every one of which is
sung to the same tune, eternally chiming in the ear without
variation or relief. Mrs. Pritchard was an actress of a
different cast, had more nature, and, of course, more change of
tone, and variety both of action and expression: in my opinion
the comparison was decidedly in her favour; but when, after
long and eager expectation, I first beheld little Garrick, then
young and light and alive in every muscle and in every feature,
come bounding on the stage, and pointing at the wittol Altamont
and heavy-paced Horatio--heavens, what a transition!--it seemed
as if a whole century had been swept over in the transition of
a single scene; old things were done away and a new order at
once brought forward, bright and luminous, and clearly destined
to dispel the barbarisms and bigotry of a tasteless age, too
long attached to the prejudices of custom, and superstitiously
devoted to the illusions of imposing declamation. This
heaven-born actor was then struggling to emancipate his
audience from the slavery they were resigned to; and though, at
times, he succeeded in throwing in some gleams of newborn light
upon them, yet, in general they seemed to _love darkness better
than light_, and, in the dialogue of altercation between
Horatio and Lothario, bestowed far the greater _show of hands_
upon the master of the old school than upon the founder of the
new. I thank my stars, my feelings in those moments led me
right; they were those of nature, and therefore could not
err."[267]

It is needless to add that Garrick excelled in comedy as well as tragedy, and in the lowest comedy too--in Abel Drugger as well as Hamlet. He was first at Goodman's Fields; then appeared both at Covent Garden and Drury Lane; but in a short time settled for life at Drury Lane as actor, manager, and author. He was a sprightly dramatist, a man of wit, and no doubt a generous man, though the endless matters of business in which he was concerned, and the refusals of all kinds which he must have been often forced into, got him, with many, a character for the reverse. Johnson, who did not spare him, pronounced him generous. Fine as his tragedy must have been, we suspect his comedy must have been finer; because his own nature was one of greater sprightliness than sentiment. We hear nothing serious of him throughout his life; and his face, with a great deal of acuteness, has nothing in it profound or romantic.