UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 IRVINE
 
 
 v.l
 
 \ 
 
 Their Majesties' Servants 
 
 Volume I.
 
 ANNALS OF THE 
 ENGLISH STAGE 
 
 OR 
 
 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 BY 
 JOHN DORAN, LL.D. 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
 BIGELOW, BROWN & CO., Inc. 
 NEW YORK
 
 Contents 
 
 I. PROLOGUE i 
 
 II. THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PLAYERS 34 
 
 III. THE "BoY ACTRESSES" AND THE " YOUNG 
 
 LADIES" 55 
 
 IV. THE GENTLEMEN OF THE KING'S COMPANY 88 
 V. THOMAS BETTERTON ..... 100 
 
 VI. "EXEUNT" AND "ENTER" .... 125 
 
 VII. ELIZABETH BARRY 137 
 
 VIII. "THEIR FIRST APPEARANCE ON THIS 
 
 STAGE " . ' . . . . . . 149 
 
 IX. THE DRAMATIC POETS .... 168 
 
 X. PROFESSIONAL AUTHORS . . . .196 
 
 XI. THE DRAAIATIC AUTHORESSES . . . 219 
 XI I, THE AUDIENCES OF THE SEVENTEENTH 
 
 CENTURY 228 
 
 XIII. A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY . . . .254 
 
 XIV. THE UNITED AND THE DISUNITED COM- 
 
 PANIES 287 
 
 XV. UNION, STRENGTH, PROSPERITY . . . 294 
 
 XVI. COMPETITION, AND WHAT CAMR OF IT . 313 
 XVII. THE PROGRESS OF JAMES QUIN, AND DE- 
 CLINE OF BARTON BOOTH . . .331 
 
 XVIII. BARTON BOOTH 336
 
 Their Majesties' Servants 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 THE period of the origin of the drama is an un- 
 settled question, but it has been fixed at an early 
 date, if we may accept the theory of a recent writer, 
 who suggests that Moses described the Creation from 
 a visionary pictorial representation, which occupied 
 seven days, from the commencement to the close of 
 the spectacle ! 
 
 Among the most remote of the Chinese traditions, 
 the theatre holds a conspicuous place. In Cochin- 
 China, there is at this day a most primitive char- 
 acter about actors, authors, and audience. The 
 governor of the district enjoys the least rude seat 
 in the sylvan theatre ; he directs the applause by 
 tapping with his fingers on a little drum, and as, at 
 this signal, his secretaries fling strings full of cash on 
 to the stage, the performance suffers from continual 
 interruption. For the largesse distributed by the 
 patron of the drama, and such of the spectators as 
 choose to follow his example, the actors and actresses 
 
 i
 
 2 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 furiously scramble, while the poor poet stands by, 
 sees his best situations sacrificed, and is none the 
 richer, by way of compensation. 
 
 In Greece, the profession of actor was accounted 
 honourable. In Rome, it was sometimes a well-re- 
 quited, but also a despised vocation. During the 
 decade of years, when that aristocratic democrat, 
 Pisistratus, held power, the drama first appeared (it is 
 said) at Athens. It formed a portion of the religion 
 of the state. The theatre was a temple in which, 
 rudely enough at first, the audience were taught how 
 the will, not only of men but of gods, must neces- 
 sarily submit to the irresistible force of Destiny. 
 This last power, represented by a combination of the 
 lyric and epic elements, formed the drama which had 
 its origin in Greece alone. In such a sense the Sem- 
 itic races had no drama at all, while in Greece it was 
 almost exclusively of Attic growth, its religious char- 
 acter being especially supported, on behalf of the 
 audience, by the ever sagacious, morally and fer- 
 vently pious chorus. Lyric tragedy existed before 
 the age of Thespis and Pisistratus ; but a spoken 
 tragedy dates from that period alone, above five cen- 
 turies earlier than the Christian era ; and the new 
 theatre found at once its Prynne and its Collier in 
 that hearty hater of actors and acting, the legislative 
 Solon. 
 
 At the great festivals, when the theatres were 
 opened, the expenses of the representations were 
 borne partly by the state and partly by certain 
 wealthy officials. The admission was free, until over- 
 crowding produced fatal accidents. To diminish the 
 latter, an entrance fee of two oboli, three and one-
 
 PROLOGUE 3 
 
 fourth pence, was established, but the receipts were 
 made over to the poor. From morning till dewy 
 eve these roofless buildings, capable of containing, 
 on an average, twenty thousand persons, were filled 
 from the ground to the topmost seat, in the sweet 
 springtide, sole theatrical season of the Greeks. . 
 
 Disgrace and disfranchisement were the penalties 
 laid upon the professional Roman actor. He was 
 accounted infamous, and was excluded from the 
 tribes. Nevertheless, the calling in Italy had some- 
 thing of a religious quality. Livy tells us of a com- 
 pany of Etruscan actors, ballet-pantomimists, how- 
 ever, rather than comedians, who were employed to 
 avert the anger of the gods, which was manifested 
 by a raging pestilence. These Etruscans were, in 
 their way, the originators of the drama in Italy. 
 That drama was, at first, a dance, then a dance and 
 song ; with them was subsequently interwoven a 
 story. From the period of Livius Andronicus (B. c, 
 240) is dated the origin of an actual Latin theatre, 
 the glory of which was at its highest in the days of 
 Attius and Terence, but for which a dramatic liter- 
 ature became extinct when the mimes took the place 
 of the old comedy and tragedy. 
 
 Even in Rome the skill of the artist sometimes 
 freed him from the degradation attached to the exer- 
 cise of his art. Roscius, the popular comedian, 
 contemporary with Cicero, was elevated by Sulla to 
 the equestrian dignity, and with ^Esopus, the great 
 tragedian, enjoyed the friendship of Tully, and of 
 Tully's friends, the wisest and the noblest in Rome. 
 Roscius and ^Esopus were what would now be called 
 scholars and gentlemen, as well as unequalled artists,
 
 4 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 whom no amount of application could appal when 
 they had to achieve a triumph in their art. An 
 Austrian emperor once " encored " an entire opera 
 (the " Matrimonio Segreto ") ; but, according to 
 Cicero, his friend ^Esopus so delighted his enthusi- 
 astic audience, that in one piece they encored him 
 "millies," a thousand, or perhaps an indefinite 
 number of times. The Roman tragedian lived well, 
 and bequeathed a vast fortune to his son. Roscius 
 earned ^32 daily, and he, too, amassed great wealth. 
 
 The mimes were satirical burlesques, parts of 
 which were often improvised, and had some affinity 
 to the pasquinades and harlequinades of modern 
 Italy. The writers were the intimate friends of 
 emperors ; the actors were infamous. Caesar induced 
 Decius Laberius, an author of knightly rank, to ap- 
 pear on the stage in one of these pieces ; and Labe- 
 rius obeyed, not for the sake of the honorarium, 
 ^4,000, but from dread of disobeying an order from 
 so powerful a master. The unwilling actor profited 
 by his degradation to satirise the policy of Caesar, 
 who did not resent the liberty, but restored Laberius 
 to the rank and equestrian privileges which he had 
 forfeited by appearing on the stage. Laberius, how- 
 ever, never recovered the respect of his countrymen, 
 not even of those who had applauded him the most 
 loudly. 
 
 The licentious pantomimists were so gross in their 
 performances, that they even disgusted Tiberius ; 
 who forbade them from holding any intercourse, as 
 the professional histriones or actors of the drama 
 had done, with Romans of equestrian or senatorial 
 dignity. It was against the stage exclusively given up
 
 PROLOGUE 5 
 
 to their scandalous exhibitions, that the Christian 
 fathers levelled their denunciations. They would 
 have approved a " well-trod stage," as Milton did, 
 and the object attributed to it by Aristotle, but 
 they had only anathemas for that horrible theatre 
 where danced and postured Bathyllus and Hylas, 
 and Pylades, Latinus, and Nero, and even that grace- 
 ful Paris whom Domitian slew in his jealousy, and of 
 whom Martial wrote that he was the great glory and 
 grief of the Roman theatre, and that all Venuses 
 and Cupids were buried for ever in the sepulchre of 
 Paris, the darling of old Rome. 
 
 In this our England, minds and hearts had ever 
 been open to dramatic impressions. The Druidical 
 rites contained the elements of dramatic spectacle. 
 The pagan Saxon era had its dialogue-actors, or buf- 
 foons ; and when the period of Christianity succeeded, 
 its professors and teachers took of the evil epoch 
 what best suited their purposes. In narrative dia- 
 logue, or song, they dramatised the incidents of the 
 lives of the saints, and of One greater than saints ; 
 and they thus rendered intelligible to listeners, what 
 would have been incomprehensible if it had been 
 presented to them as readers. 
 
 In castle hall, before farmhouse fires, on the 
 bridges, and in the market-places, the men who best 
 performed the united offices of missionary and actor 
 were, at once, the most popular preachers and play- 
 ers of the day. The greatest of them all, St. Adhelm, 
 when he found his audience growing weary of too 
 much serious exposition, would take his small harp 
 from under his robes, and would strike up a nar- 
 rative song, that would render his hearers hilarious.
 
 6 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 The mixture of the sacred and profane in the 
 early dialogues and drama prevailed for a lengthened 
 period. The profane sometimes superabounded, and 
 the higher Church authorities had to look to it. The 
 monotony of monastic life had caused the wander- 
 ing gleemen to be too warmly welcomed within the 
 monastery circles, where there were men who cheer- 
 fully employed their energies in furnishing new songs 
 and lively " patter " to the strollers. It was, doubt- 
 less, all well meant ; but more serious men thought 
 it wise to prohibit the indulgence of this peculiar 
 literary pursuit. Accordingly, the Council of Clover- 
 shoe, and decrees bearing the king's mark, severally 
 ordained that actors, and other vagabonds therein 
 named, should no longer have access to monasteries, 
 and that no priest should either play the gleeman 
 himself, or encourage the members of that disrep- 
 utable profession, by turning ale-poets, and writing 
 songs for them. 
 
 It is a singular fact, that one of our earliest thea- 
 tres had Geoffrey, a monk, for its manager, and 
 Dunstable immortalised by Silvester Daggerwood 
 for a locality. This early manager, who flourished 
 about 1119, rented a house in the town just named, 
 when a drama was represented, which had St. Kath- 
 erine for a heroine, and her whole life for a subject. 
 This proto-theatre was, of course, burnt down ; and 
 the managing monk withdrew from the profession, 
 more happy than most ruined managers, in this, that 
 he had his cell at St. Albans, to which he could re- 
 tire, and therein find a home for the remainder of his 
 days. 
 
 Through a course of mysteries, miracle-plays,
 
 PROLOGUE 7 
 
 illustrating Scripture, history, legend, and the suffer- 
 ings of the martyrs, moralities in which the vices 
 were in antagonism against the virtues, and chronicle- 
 plays, which were history in dialogue, we finally 
 arrive at legitimate tragedy and comedy. Till this 
 last and welcome consummation, the Church as 
 regularly employed the stage for religious ends, as the 
 old heathen magistrates did when they made village 
 festivals the means of maintaining a religious feeling 
 among the villagers. Professor Browne, in his " His- 
 tory of Greek Classical Literature," remarks : " The 
 believers in a pure faith can scarcely understand a 
 religious element in dramatic exhibitions. They who 
 knew that God is a spirit, and that they who worship 
 him must worship him in spirit and in truth, feel 
 that his attributes are too awful to permit any ideas 
 connected with deity to be brought into contact with 
 the exhibition of human passions. Religious poetry 
 of any kind, except that which has been inspired, has 
 seldom been the work of minds sufficiently heavenly 
 and spiritual to be perfectly successful in attaining 
 the end of poetry, namely, the elevation of the 
 thoughts to a level with the subject. It brings God 
 down to man, instead of raising man to him. It 
 causes that which is most offensive to religious feel- 
 ing, and even good taste, irreverent familiarity with 
 subjects which cannot be contemplated without awe. 
 But a religious drama would be, to those who realise 
 to their own minds the spirituality of God, nothing 
 less than "anthropomorphism and idolatry. " Chris- 
 tians of a less advanced age, and believers in a more 
 sensuous creed, were able to view with pleasure the 
 mystery -plays in which the gravest truths of the
 
 8 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 gospel were dramatically represented ; nay, more, 
 just as the ancient Athenians could look even upon 
 their gross and licentious comedy, as forming part of 
 a religious ceremony, so could Christians imagine a 
 religious element in profane dramas which repre- 
 sented in a ludicrous light subjects of the most holy 
 character." 
 
 Mysteries kept the stage from the Norman to the 
 Tudor era. The moralities began to displace them 
 during the reign of Henry VI., who was a less bene- 
 ficial patron of the stage than that Richard III. who 
 has himself retained a so unpleasant possession of the 
 scene. Actors and dramatists have been ungrateful 
 to this individual, who was their first practically use- 
 ful patron. Never, previous to Richard's time, had 
 an English prince been known to have a company of 
 players of his own. When Duke of Gloucester, a 
 troop of such servants was attached to his household. 
 Richard was unselfish toward these new retainers ; 
 whenever he was too " busy," or " not i' the vein " to 
 receive instruction or amusement at their hands, he 
 gave them license to travel abroad, and forth went 
 the mirthful company, from county to county, man- 
 sion to mansion, from one corporation hall and from 
 one inn yard to another, playing securely under the 
 sanction of his name, winning favour for themselves, 
 and a great measure of public regard, probably, for 
 their then generous and princely master. 
 
 The fashion thus set by a prince was followed by 
 the nobility, and it led to a legal recognition of the 
 actor and his craft, in the royal license of 1572, 
 whereby the players connected with noble houses 
 were empowered to play wherever it seemed good to
 
 PROLOGUE 9 
 
 them, if their masters sanctioned their absence, with- 
 out any let or hindrance from the law. 
 
 The patronage of actors by the Duke of Glouces- 
 ter led to a love of acting by gentlemen amateurs. 
 Richard had ennobled the profession, the gentlemen 
 of the Inns of Court took it up, and they soon had 
 kings and queens leading the applause of approving 
 audiences. To the same example may be traced the 
 custom of having dramatic performances in puolic 
 schools, the pupils being the performers. These 
 boys, or, in their place, the children of the Chapel 
 Royal, were frequently summoned to play in presence 
 of the king and court. Boatsful of them went down 
 the river to Greenwich, or up to Hampton Court, to 
 enliven the dulness or stimulate the religious enthu- 
 siasm of their royal auditors there. At the former 
 place, and when there was not yet any suspicion of 
 the orthodoxy of Henry VIII., the boys of St. Paul's 
 acted a Latin play before the sovereign and the rep- 
 resentatives of other sovereigns. The object of the 
 play was to exalt the Pope, and consequently, Luther 
 and his wife were the foolish villains of the piece, ex- 
 posed to the contempt and derision of the delighted 
 and right-thinking hearers. 
 
 In most cases the playwrights, even when members 
 of the clergy, were actors as well as authors. This 
 is the more singular, as the players were generally of 
 a roystering character, and were but ill-regarded by 
 the Church. Nevertheless, by their united efforts, 
 though they were not always colleagues, they helped 
 the rude production of the first regularly constructed 
 English comedy, "Ralph Roister Doister," in 1540. 
 The author was a " clerk," named Nicholas Udall,
 
 io THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 whom Eton boys, whose master he was, hated be- 
 cause of his harshness. The rough and reverend 
 gentleman brought forth the above piece, just one 
 year previous to his losing the mastership, on suspi- 
 cion of being concerned in a robbery of the college 
 plate. 
 
 Subsequently to this, the Cambridge youths had 
 the courage to play a tragedy called " Pammachus," 
 which must have been offensive to the government 
 of Henry VIII. Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, 
 chancellor of the university, immediately wrote a 
 characteristic letter to the vice-chancellor, Dr. Mat- 
 thew Parker. It is dated 27th March, 1545. "I 
 have been informed," he says, "that the youth in 
 Christ's College, contrary to the mind of the master 
 and president, hath of late played a tragedy called 
 ' Pammachus,' a part of which tragedy is so pestifer- 
 ous as were intolerable. If it be so, I intend to travail, 
 as my duty is, for the reformation of it. I know 
 mine office there, and mind to do in it as much as I 
 may." Parker answers, on the 3d of April, that the 
 play had been performed with the concurrence of the 
 college authorities, after means had been taken to 
 strike out "slanderous cavillations and suspicious 
 sentences," and "all such matter whereby offence 
 might greatly have risen. Hitherto," adds Parker, 
 " have I not seen any man that was present at it, to 
 show himself grieved ; albeit it was thought their 
 time and labour might be spent in a better-handled 
 matter." Gardiner is not satisfied with this, and he 
 will have the subject investigated. Accordingly, some 
 of the audience are ordered to be examined, to dis- 
 cover if what they applauded was what the king's
 
 PROLOGUE 1 1 
 
 government had reproved. " I have heard special- 
 ities," he writes, "that they" (the actors) "reproved 
 Lent fastings, all ceremonies, and albeit the words of 
 sacrament and mass were not named, yet the rest 
 of the matter written in that tragedy, in the reproof 
 of them was expressed." Gardiner intimates that if 
 the authorities concurred, after exercising a certain 
 censorship, in licensing the representation, they were 
 responsible for all that was uttered, as it must have 
 had the approval of their judgments. 
 
 A strict examination followed. Nearly the entire 
 audience passed under it, but not a man could or 
 would remember that he had heard anything to which 
 he could make objection. Therewith, Parker trans- 
 mitted to Gardiner the stage-copy of the tragedy, 
 which the irate prelate thus reviews : " Perusing the 
 book of the tragedy which ye sent me, I find much 
 matter not stricken out, all which by the parties' own 
 confession, was uttered very naught, and on the other 
 part something not well omitted." Flagrant lies are 
 said to be mixed up with incontrovertible truths ; 
 and it is suggested, that if any of the audience had 
 declared that they had heard nothing at which they 
 could take offence, it must have been because they 
 had forgotten much of what they had heard. Ulti- 
 mately, Parker was left to deal with the parties as he 
 thought best ; and he wisely seems to have thought 
 it best to do nothing. Plays were the favourite rec- 
 reation of the university men ; albeit, as Parker 
 writes, "Two or three in Trinity College think it 
 very unseeming that Christians should play or be 
 present at any profane comedies or tragedies." 
 
 Actors and clergy came into direct collision, when,
 
 12 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 at the accession of Edward VI. (i 547), the Bishop of 
 Winchester announced "a solemn dirge and mass," 
 in honour of the lately deceased king, Henry VIII. 
 The indiscreet Southwark actors thereupon gave 
 notice that, at the time announced for the religious 
 service, they would act a " solempne play," to try, as 
 the bishop remarks in a letter to Paget, "who shall 
 have most resort, they in game or I in earnest." The 
 prelate urgently requests the interference of the 
 lord protector, but with what effect, the records in 
 the state paper office afford no information. 
 
 Some of these Southwark actors were the "ser- 
 vants " of Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, whose 
 mansion was on the opposite side of the river. In 
 1551 he was promoted to the dukedom of Suffolk, 
 but his poor players were then prohibited from play- 
 ing anywhere, save in their master's presence. 
 
 Severity led to fraud. In the autumn of the fol- 
 lowing year, Richard Ogle forwarded to the council 
 a forged license, taken from the players a matter 
 which was pronounced to be " worthy of correction." 
 The young king's patronage of his own " servants " 
 was not marked by a princely liberality ; the salary 
 of one of his players of interludes, John Brown, was 
 five marks yearly, as wages, and one pound three 
 shillings and fourpence, for his livery. 
 
 Of the party dramatists of this reign, that reverend 
 prelate, "Bilious Bale," was the most active and the 
 least pleasant-tempered. Bale had been a Romanist 
 priest, he was now a Protestant bishop (of Ossory), 
 with a wife to control the episcopal hospitality. Bale 
 "had seen the world." He had gone through mar- 
 vellous adventures, of which his adversaries did not
 
 PROLOGUE 13 
 
 believe a word ; and he had converted the most 
 abstruse doctrinal subjects into edifying semi-lively 
 comedies. The bishop did not value his enemies at 
 the worth of a rush in an old king's chamber. He 
 was altogether a Boanerges ; and when his " John, 
 King of England," was produced, the audience, com- 
 prising two factions in the Church and state, found 
 the policy of Rome toward this country illustrated 
 with such effect, that while one party hotly de- 
 nounced, the other applauded the coarse and vigorous 
 audacity of the author. 
 
 So powerful were the influences of the stage, when 
 thus applied, that the government of Queen Mary 
 made similar application of them in support of their 
 own views. A play, styled " Respublica," exhibited 
 to the people the alleged iniquity of the Reforma- 
 tion, pointed out the dread excellence of the sover- 
 eign herself (personified as Queen Nemesis), and ex- 
 emplified her inestimable qualities, by making all the 
 virtues follow in her train as maids of honour. 
 
 Such, now, were the orthodox actors ; but the 
 heretical players were to be provided against by 
 stringent measures. A decree of the sovereign and 
 council, in 1556, prohibited all players and pipers 
 from strolling through the kingdom; such strollers 
 the pipers singularly included being, as it was 
 said, disseminators of seditions and heresies. 
 
 The eye of the observant government also watched 
 the resident actors in town. King Edward had or- 
 dered the removal of the king's revels and masques 
 from Warwick Inn, Holborn, "to the late dissolved 
 house of Blackfriars, London," where considerable 
 outlay was made for scenery and machinery, ad-
 
 14 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 juncts to stage effect, which are erroneously sup- 
 posed to have been first introduced a century later, 
 by Davenant. There still remained acting, a com- 
 pany at the Boar's Head, without Aldgate, on whom 
 the police of Mary were ordered to make levy. The 
 actors had been playing in that inn-yard a comedy 
 entitled a " Sack Full of News." The order of the 
 Privy Council to the mayor informs his Worship, that 
 it is " a lewd play ; " bids him send his officers to the 
 theatre without delay, and not only to apprehend 
 the comedians, but to "take their play-book from 
 them and send it before the Privy Council" 
 
 The actors were under arrest for four and twenty 
 hours, and were then set free, but under certain stipu- 
 lations to be observed by them " and all other players 
 throughout the city." Namely : they were to exer- 
 cise their vocation of acting " between All Saints and 
 Shrovetide " only ; and they were bound to act no 
 other plays but such as were approved of by the 
 Ordinary. This was the most stringent censorship 
 to which the stage has ever been subjected. 
 
 Although Edward had commanded the transfer of 
 the company of actors from Warwick Inn to Black- 
 friars, that dissolved monastery was not legally 
 converted into a theatre till the year 1576, when 
 Elizabeth was on the throne. In that year the Earl 
 of Leicester's servants were licensed to open their 
 series of seasons in a house, the site of which is 
 occupied by Apothecaries' Hall, and some adjacent 
 buildings. At the head of the company was James, 
 father of Richard Burbage, the original representa- 
 tive of Richard III. and of Hamlet, the author of 
 which tragedies, so named, was, at the time of the
 
 . PROLOGUE 15 
 
 opening of the Blackfriars Theatre, a lad of twelve 
 years of age, surmounting the elementary difficulties 
 of Latin and Greek, in the Free School of Stratford- 
 on-Avon. 
 
 In Elizabeth the drama possessed a generous pat- 
 roness and a vindictive censor. Her afternoons at 
 Windsor Castle and Richmond were made pleasant 
 to her by the exertions of her players. The cost to 
 her of occasional performances at the above resi- 
 dences during two years, amounted to a fraction over 
 ^444. There were incidental expenses also, proving 
 that the actors were well cared for. In the year 
 1575, among the estimates for plays at Hampton 
 Court, the liberal sum of 8 14^. is set down "for 
 the boyling of the brawns against Xtmas." 
 
 As at court, so also did the drama flourish at 
 the universities, especially at Cambridge. There, in 
 1566, the coarse dialect comedy, "Gammer Gurton's 
 Needle," a marvellous production, when considered 
 as the work of a bishop, Still, of Bath and Wells, 
 was presented amid a world of laughter. 
 
 There, too, was exercised a sharp censorship over 
 both actors and audience. In a letter from Vice- 
 Chancellor Hatcher to Burleigh, the conduct of 
 Punter, a student of St. John's, at stage-plays at 
 Caius and Trinity, is complained of as unsteady. In 
 1581 the heads of houses again make application to 
 Burleigh, objecting to the players of the great 
 chamberlain, the Earl of Oxford, poet and courtier, 
 exhibiting certain plays already "practised " by them 
 before the king. The authorities, when scholastic 
 audiences were noisy, or when players brought no 
 novelty with them to Cambridge, applied to the great
 
 16 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 statesman in town, and vexed him with dramatic 
 troubles, as if he had been general stage-manager of 
 all the companies strolling over the kingdom. 
 
 On one occasion the stage was employed as a 
 vantage-ground, whereon to raise a battery against 
 the power of the stage's great patroness, the queen. 
 In 1 599, the indiscreet followers of Essex " filled the 
 pit of the theatre, where Rutland and Southampton 
 are daily seen, and where Shakespeare's company, in 
 the great play of 'Richard II.,' have, for more than 
 a year, been feeding the public eye with pictures of 
 the deposition of kings." In June, of the following 
 year, "those scenes of Shakespeare's play disturb 
 Elizabeth's dreams." The play had had a long and 
 splendid run, not less from its glorious agony of 
 dramatic passion than from the open countenance 
 lent to it by the earl, who, before his voyage, was a 
 constant auditor at the Globe, and by his constant 
 companions, Rutland and Southampton. The great 
 parliamentary scene, the deposition of Richard, not 
 in the printed book, was possibly not in the early 
 play ; yet the representation of a royal murder and 
 a successful usurpation on the public stage is an 
 event to be applied by the groundlings, in a perni- 
 cious and disloyal sense. Tongues whisper to the 
 queen that this play is part of a great plot to teach 
 her subjects how to murder kings. They tell her 
 she is Richard ; Essex, Bolingbroke. These warn- 
 ings sink into her mind. When Lambard, keeper 
 of the records, waits upon her at the palace, she ex- 
 claims to him, " I am Richard ! Know you not 
 that ? " 
 
 The performance of this play was, nevertheless,
 
 PROLOGUE ' 17 
 
 not prohibited. When the final attempt of Essex 
 was about to be made, in February, 1601, "to fan 
 the courage of their crew," says Mr. Hepworth Dixon, 
 from whose " Personal History of Lord Bacon " I 
 borrow these details, "and prepare the citizens for 
 news of a royal deposition, the chiefs of the insurrec- 
 tion think good to revive, for a night, their favourite 
 play. They send for Augustine Phillips, manager of 
 the Blackfriars Theatre, to Essex House. Monteagle, 
 Percy, and two or three more among them Cuffe 
 and Meyrick gentlemen whose names and faces he 
 does not recognise, receive him ; and Lord Monteagle, 
 speaking for the rest, tells him that they want to 
 have played the next day Shakespeare's deposition of 
 Richard II. Phillips objects that the play is stale, 
 that a new one is running, and that the company will 
 lose money by a change. Monteagle meets his ob- 
 jections. The theatre shall not lose ; a host of 
 gentlemen from Essex House will fill the galleries ; 
 if there is fear of loss, here are 40^. to make it up. 
 Phillips take the money, and King Richard is duly 
 deposed for them, and put to death." 
 
 Meanwhile, the profession of player had been as- 
 sailed by fierce opponents. In 1587, when twenty- 
 three summers lightly sat on Shakespeare's brow, 
 Gosson, the "parson" of St. Botolph's, discharged 
 the first shot against stage-plays which had yet been 
 fired by any one not in absolute authority. Gosson's 
 book was entitled, " A School of Abuse," and it pro- 
 fessed to contain " a pleasant invective against poets, 
 players, jesters, and such like caterpillars of a com- 
 monwealth." Gosson's pleasantry consists in his 
 illogical employment of invective. Domitian favoured
 
 i8 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 plays, argal, Domitian's domestic felicity was troubled 
 by a player, Paris. Of Caligula, Gosson remarks, 
 that he made so much of players and dancers, that 
 " he suffered them openly to kiss his lips, when the 
 senators might scarcely have a lick at his feet ; " and 
 the good man of St. Botolph's adds, that the murder 
 of Domitian, by Charea, was " a fit catastrophe," for it 
 was done as the emperor was returning from a play ! 
 As a painter of manners, Gosson thus gaily limns 
 the audiences of his time. " In our assemblies at 
 plays in London, you shall see such heaving and 
 shouting, such pitching and shouldering to sit by 
 women, such care for their garments that they be 
 not trodden on, such eyes to their laps that no chips 
 light on them, such pillows to their backs that they 
 take no hurt, such maskings in their ears, I know not 
 what ; such giving them pippins to pass the time ; 
 such playing at foot-saunt without cards ; such tick- 
 ing, such toying, such smiling, such winking, and such 
 manning them home when the sports are ended, that 
 it is a right comedy to mark their behaviour." In 
 this picture Gosson paints a good-humoured and a 
 gallant people. When he turns from failings to 
 vices, the old rector of St. Botolph's dwells upon 
 them as Tartuffe does upon the undraped shoulders 
 of Dorinne. He likes the subject, and makes attract- 
 ive what he denounces as pernicious. The play- 
 wrights he assails with the virulence of an author 
 who, having been unsuccessful himself, has no glad- 
 ness in the success, nor any generosity for the short- 
 comings, of others. Yet he cannot deny that some 
 plays are moral, such as " Catiline's Conspiracy," 
 " because," as he elegantly observes, " it is said to be
 
 PROLOGUE 19 
 
 a pig of mine own sow." This, and one or two other 
 plays written by him, he complaisantly designates as 
 "good plays, and sweet plays, and of all plays the 
 best plays, and most to be liked." 
 
 Let us now return to the year of Shakespeare's 
 birth. The great poet came into the world when the 
 English portion of it was deafened with the thunder 
 of Archbishop Grindal, who flung his bolts against 
 the profession which the child in his cradle at Strat- 
 ford was about to ennoble for ever. England had 
 been devastated by the plague of 1563. Grindal 
 illogically traced the rise of the pestilence to the 
 theatres ; and to check the evil, he counselled Cecil 
 to suppress the vocation of the idle, infamous, youth- 
 infecting players, as the prelate called them, for one 
 whole year, and "if it were for ever," adds the 
 primate, " it were not amiss." 
 
 Elizabeth's face shone upon the actors, and re- 
 hearsals went actively on before the master of the 
 revels. The numbers of the players, however, so 
 increased and spread over the kingdom, that the gov- 
 ernment, when Shakespeare was eight years of age, 
 enacted that startling statute which is supposed to 
 have branded dramatic art and artists with infamy. 
 But the celebrated statute of 1572 does not declare 
 players to be "rogues and vagabonds." It simply 
 threatens to treat as such, all acting companies who 
 presume to set up their stage without the license of 
 " two justices of the peace at least." This was rather 
 to protect the art than to insult the artists; and a 
 few years subsequent to the publication of this statute, 
 Elizabeth granted the first royal patent conceded in 
 England to actors, that of 1 576. By this authority,
 
 20 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Lord Leicester's servants were empowered to pro- 
 duce such plays as seemed good to them, "as well," 
 says the queen, " for the recreation of our loving sub- 
 jects as for our solace and pleasure, when we shall 
 think good to see them." Sovereign could scarcely 
 pay a more graceful compliment to poet or to actor. 
 
 This royal patent sanctioned the acting of plays 
 within the liberties of the city ; but against this the 
 city magistrates commenced an active agitation. Their 
 brethren of Middlesex followed a like course through- 
 out the county. The players were treated as the 
 devil's missionaries ; and such unsavoury terms were 
 flung at them and at playwrights, by the city alder- 
 men and the county justices, that thereon was founded 
 that animosity which led dramatic authors to repre- 
 sent citizens and justices as the most egregious of fools, 
 the most arrant of knaves, and the most deluded of 
 husbands. 
 
 Driven from the city, Burbage and his gay brother- 
 hood were safe in the shelter of Blackfriars, adjacent 
 to the city walls. Safe, but neither welcome nor un- 
 molested. The devout and noble ladies who had 
 long resided near the once sacred building clamoured 
 at the audacity of the actors. Divine worship and 
 sermon, so they averred, would be grievously dis- 
 turbed by the music and rant of the comedians, and 
 by the debauched companions resorting to witness 
 those abominable plays and interludes. 
 
 This cry was shrill and incessant, but it was un- 
 successful. The Blackfriars was patronised by a 
 public whose favours were also solicited by those 
 " sumptuous houses," the " Theatre " and the " Cur- 
 tain," in Shoreditch. Pulpit logicians reasoned, more
 
 PROLOGUE a i 
 
 heedless of connection between premises and conclu- 
 sion than Grindal or Gosson. " The cause of plagues 
 is sin," argues one, "and the cause of sin are plays; 
 therefore, the cause of plagues are plays." Again : 
 "If these be not suppressed," exclaims a Paul's Cross 
 preacher, "it will make such a tragedy that all Lon- 
 don may well mourn while it is London." But for 
 the sympathy of the Earl of Leicester, it would have 
 gone ill with these players. He has been as ill-re- 
 quited by authors and actors as their earlier friend, 
 Richard of Gloucester. To this day, the stage ex- 
 hibits the great earl, according to the legend con- 
 trived by his foes, as the murderer of his wife. 
 
 Sanctioned by the court, befriended by the noble, 
 and followed by the general public, the players stood 
 their ground; but they lacked the discretion which 
 should have distinguished them. They bearded 
 authority, played in despite of legal prohibitions, and 
 introduced forbidden subjects of state and religion 
 upon their stage. Thence ensued suspensions for 
 indefinite periods, severe supervision when the sus- 
 pension was rescinded, and renewed transgression on 
 the part of the reckless companies, even to the play- 
 ing on a Sunday, in any locality where they con- 
 jectured there was small likelihood of their being 
 followed by a warrant. 
 
 But the most costly of the theatrical revels of 
 King James took place at Whitehall, at Greenwich, 
 or at Hampton Court, on Sunday evenings an 
 unseemly practice, which embittered the hatred of 
 the Puritans against the stage, all belonging to it, and 
 all who patronised it. James was wiser when he 
 licensed Kirkham, Hawkins, Kendall, and Payne, to
 
 32 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 train the queen's children of the revels, and to exer- 
 cise them in playing within the Blackfriars or else- 
 where, all plays which had the sanction of old Samuel 
 Danyell. His queen, Anne, was both actress and 
 manager in the masques peformed at court, the ex- 
 penses of which often exceeded, indeed were ordered 
 not to be limited to ;i,ooo. "Excellent comedies" 
 were played before Prince Henry and the Prince Pal- 
 grave, at Cambridge ; and the members of St. John's, 
 Clare, and Trinity, acted before the king and court, 
 in 1615, when the illustrious guests were scattered 
 among the colleges, and twenty-six tuns of wine con- 
 sumed within five days ! 
 
 The lawyers alone were offended at the visits of 
 the court to the amateurs at Cambridge, especially 
 when James went thither to see the comedy of " Igno- 
 ramus," in which law and lawyers are treated with 
 small measure of respect. When James was pre- 
 vented from going to Cambridge, he was accustomed 
 to send for the whole scholastic company to appear 
 before him, in one of the choicest of their pieces, at 
 Royston. Roving troops were licensed by this play- 
 loving king to follow their vocation in stated places 
 in the country, under certain restrictions for their 
 tarrying and wending a fortnight's residence in one 
 town being the time limited, with injunction not to 
 play "during church hours." 
 
 Then there were unlicensed satirical plays in un- 
 licensed houses. Sir John Yorke, his wife and 
 brothers, were fined and imprisoned, because of a 
 scandalous play acted in Sir John's house, in favour 
 of popery. On another occasion, in 1617, we hear of 
 a play, in some country mansion, in which the king,
 
 PROLOGUE 23 
 
 represented as a huntsman, observed that he had 
 rather hear a dog bark than a cannon roar. Two 
 kinsmen, named Napleton, discussed this matter, 
 whereupon one of them remarked that it was a pity 
 the king, so well represented, ever came to the crown 
 of England at all, for he loved his dogs better than 
 his subjects. Whereupon the listener to this remark 
 went and laid information before the council against 
 the kinsman who had uttered it ! 
 
 The players could, in James's reign, boast that 
 their profession was at least kindly looked upon by 
 the foremost man in the English Church. " No 
 man," says Racket, " was more wise or more serious 
 than Archbishop Bancroft, the Atlas of our clergy, in 
 his time ; and he that writes this hath seen an inter- 
 lude well presented before him, at Lambeth, by his 
 own gentlemen, when I was one of the youngest 
 spectators." The actors thus had the sanction of the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury in James's reign, as they 
 had that of Williams, Archbishop of York, in the 
 next. Racket often alludes to theatrical matters. 
 "The theatres," he says, in one of his discourses 
 made during the reign of Charles II., when the 
 preacher was Bishop of Litchfield and Coventry, 
 "are not large enough nowadays to receive our 
 loose gallants, male and female, but whole fields and 
 parks are thronged with their concourse, where they 
 make a muster of their gay clothes." Meanwhile, in 
 1616, the pulpit once more issued anathemas against 
 the stage. The denouncer, on this occasion, was the 
 preacher of St. Mary Overy's, named Sutton, whose 
 undiscriminating censure was boldly, if not logically, 
 answered by the actor, Field. There is a letter from
 
 24 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 the latter in the State Paper Office, in which he 
 remonstrates against the sweeping condemnation of 
 all players. The comedian admits that what he calls 
 his trade has its corruptions, like other trades ; but 
 he adds, that since it is patronised by the king, there 
 is disloyalty in preaching against it, and he hints that 
 the theology of the preacher must be a little out of 
 gear, seeing that he openly denounces a vocation 
 which is not condemned in Scripture ! 
 
 Field, the champion of his craft in the early part of 
 the seventeenth century, was one of the dozen actors 
 to whom King James, in 1619, granted a license to 
 act comedy, tragedy, history, etc., for the solace and 
 pleasure of his Majesty and his subjects, at the Globe, 
 and at their private house in the precincts of Black- 
 friars. This license was made out to Hemings, Bur- 
 bage, Condell, Lowen, Tooley, Underwood, Field, 
 Benfield, Gough, Eccleston, Robinson, Shancks, and 
 their associates. Their success rendered them auda- 
 cious, and, in 1624, they got into trouble, on a com- 
 plaint of the Spanish ambassador. The actors at the 
 Globe had produced Middleton's " Game at Chess," 
 in which the action is carried on by black and white 
 pieces, representing the Reformed and Romanist 
 parties. The latter, being the rogues of the piece, 
 are foiled, and are "put in the bag." The Spanish 
 envoy's complaint was founded on the fact that living 
 persons were represented by the actors, such persons 
 being the King of Spain, Gondomar, and the famous 
 Antonio de Dominis, who, after being a Romish 
 bishop (of Spalatro), professed Protestantism, became 
 Dean of Windsor, and after all died in his earlier 
 faith, at Rome. On the ambassador's complaint,
 
 PROLOGUE 25 
 
 the actors and the author were summoned before the 
 council, but no immediate result followed, for, two 
 days later, Nethercole writes to Carleton, informing 
 him that "the comedy in which the whole Spanish 
 business is taken up, is drawing 100 nightly." At 
 that time, a house with 20 in it was accounted a 
 "good house," at either the Globe or Blackfriars. 
 Receipts amounting to five times that sum, for nine 
 afternoons successively, may be accepted as a proof 
 of the popularity of this play. The Spaniard, how- 
 ever, would not let the matter rest ; the play was 
 suppressed, the actors forbidden to represent living 
 personages on the stage, and the author was sent to 
 prison. Middleton was not long detained in durance 
 vile. James set him free, instigated by a quip in a 
 poor epigram : 
 
 " Rise but your royal hand, 'twill set me free ! 
 'Tis but the ' moving of a man ' that's me." 
 
 A worse joke never secured for its author a greater 
 boon that of liberty. 
 
 With all this, an incident of the following year 
 proves that the players disregarded peril, and found 
 profit in excitement. For Shrovetide, 1625, they an- 
 nounced a play founded on the Dutch horrors at 
 Amboyna, but the performance was stopped, on the 
 application of the East India Company, " for fear of 
 disturbances this Shrovetide." A watch of eight 
 hundred men was set to keep all quiet on Shrove 
 Tuesday ; and the subject was not again selected for 
 a piece till 1673, when Dryden's "Amboyna" was 
 produced in Drury Lane, and the cruelties of the 
 Dutch condemned in a serio-comic fashion, as those
 
 26 
 
 of a people so the epilogue intimated to the public 
 " who have no more religion, faith than you." 
 
 In James's days, the greater or less prevalence of 
 the plague regulated the licenses for playing. Thus, 
 permission was given to the queen's servants to act 
 " in their several houses, the Curtain, and the Boar's 
 Head, Middlesex, as soon as the plague decreases to 
 thirty a week, in London." So, in the very first year 
 of Charles I., 1625, the "common players" have 
 leave not only to act where they will, but "to come 
 to court, now the plague is reduced to six." Accord- 
 ingly, there was a merry Christmas season at Hamp- 
 ton Court, the actors being there ; and, writes Rudyard 
 to Nethercole, " the demoiselles " (maids of honour, 
 doubtless) "mean to present a French pastoral, 
 wherein the queen is a principal actress." Thus, 
 the example set by the late Queen Anne, and now 
 adopted by Henrietta Maria, led to the introduction 
 of actresses on the public stage, and it was the mani- 
 festation of a taste for acting exhibited by the French 
 princess, that led to the appearance in London of 
 actresses of that nation. 
 
 With the reign of Charles I. new hopes came to 
 the poor player, but therewith came new adversaries. 
 Charles I. was a hearty promoter of all sports and 
 pleasures, provided his people would be merry and 
 wise according to his prescription only. Wakes 
 and May-poles were authorised by him, to the infinite 
 disgust of the Puritans, who liked the authorisation 
 no more than they did the suppression of lectures. 
 When Charles repaired to church, where the " Book 
 of Sports " was read, he was exposed to the chance of 
 hearing the minister, after reading the decree as he
 
 PROLOGUE *7 
 
 was ordered, calmly go through the Ten Command- 
 ments, and then tell his hearers, that having listened 
 to the commands of God and those of man, they 
 might now follow which they liked best. 
 
 When Bishop Williams, of Lincoln, and subse- 
 quently Archbishop of York, held a living, he 
 pleaded in behalf of the right of his Northampton- 
 shire parishioners to dance round the May-pole. 
 When ordered to deliver up the Great Seal by the 
 king, he retired to his episcopal palace at Buckden, 
 where, says Hacket, "he was the worse thought of 
 by some strict censurers, because he admitted in his 
 public hall a comedy once or twice to be presented 
 before him, exhibited by his own servants, for an 
 evening recreation." Being then in disgrace, this 
 simple matter was exaggerated by his enemies into a 
 report that, on an ordination Sunday, this arrogant 
 Welshman had entertained his newly-ordained clergy 
 with a representation of Shakespeare's " Midsummer 
 Night's Dream," the actors in which had been ex- 
 pressly brought down from London for the purpose ! 
 
 In the troubled days in which King Charles and 
 Bishop Williams lived, the stage suffered with the 
 throne and Church. After this time the names of 
 the old houses cease to be familiar. Let us take a 
 parting glance of these primitive temples of our 
 drama. 
 
 The royal theatre, Blackfriars, was the most nobly 
 patronised of all the houses opened previous to the 
 Restoration. The grown-up actors were the most 
 skilled of their craft ; and the boys, or apprentices, 
 were the most fair and effeminate that could be pro- 
 cured, and could profit by instruction. On this stage
 
 28 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Shakespeare enacted the ghost in " Hamlet," old 
 Adam, and a similar line of characters, usually en- 
 trusted to the ablest of the performers of the second 
 class. Blackfriars was a winter house. Some idea of 
 its capability and pretension may be formed from the 
 fact, that in 1633, its proprietors, the brothers Bur- 
 bage, let it to the actors for a yearly rent of .50. 
 In 1655 it was pulled down, after a successful career 
 of about three-quarters of a century. 
 
 Upon the strip of shore, between Fleet Street and 
 the Thames, there have been erected three theatres. 
 In the year 1 580, the old monastery of Whitefriars was 
 given up to a company of players ; but the Whitefriars 
 Theatre did not enjoy a very lengthened career. In 
 the year 1616, that in which Shakespeare died, it had 
 already fallen into disrepute and decay, and was never 
 afterward used for the representation of dramatic 
 pieces. The other theatres, in Dorset Gardens, were 
 built subsequently to the Restoration. 
 
 In the parish of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, and in the 
 street now called Playhouse Yard, connecting White- 
 cross Street with Golding Lane, stood the old For- 
 tune, erected in 1600, for Henslowe (the pawnbroker 
 and money-lender to actors) and Alleyn, the most 
 unselfish of comedians. It was a wooden tenement, 
 which was burned down in 1621, and replaced by 
 a circular brick edifice. In 1649, two years after the 
 suppression of plays by the Puritan Act, when the 
 house was closed, a party of soldiers, " the sectaries 
 of those yeasty times," broke into the edifice, des- 
 troyed its interior fittings, and pulled down the 
 building. The site and adjacent ground were soon 
 covered by dwelling-houses.
 
 PROLOGUE 29 
 
 Meanwhile, the inn yards, or great rooms at the 
 inns, were not yet quite superseded. The Cross 
 Keys in Grace-church Street, the Bull in Bishopsgate 
 Street, near which lived Anthony Bacon, to the ex- 
 treme dislike of his grandmother ; and the Red Bull, 
 in St. John Street, Clerkenwell, which last existed as 
 late as the period of the Great Fire, were open, if not 
 for the acting of plays, at least for exhibitions of 
 fencing and wrestling. 
 
 The Surrey side of the Thames was a favourite 
 locality for plays, long before the most famous of the 
 regular and royally sanctioned theatres. The Globe 
 was on that old, joyous Bankside ; and the Little 
 Rose, in 1584, there succeeded to an elder structure 
 of the same name, whose memory is still preserved 
 in Rose Alley. The Globe, the summer-house of 
 Shakespeare and his fellows, flourished from 1594 
 to 1613, when it fell a prey to the flames caused by 
 the wadding of a gun, which lodged in and set fire to 
 the thatched roof. The new house, erected by a 
 royal and noble subscription, was of wood, but it was 
 tiled. Its career, however, was not very extended, 
 for in 1654, the owner of the freehold, Sir Matthew 
 Brand, pulled the house down ; and the name of 
 Globe Alley is all that is left to point out the where- 
 about of the popular summer-house in Southwark. 
 
 On the same bank of the great river stood the 
 Hope, a playhouse four times a week, and a garden 
 for bear-baiting on the alternate days. In the former 
 was first played Jonson's " Bartholomew Fair." When 
 plays were suppressed, the zealous and orthodox sol- 
 diery broke into the Hope, horsewhipped the actors, 
 and shot the bears. This place, however, in its char-
 
 30 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 acter of Bear Garden, rallied after the Restoration, 
 and continued prosperous till nearly the close of the 
 seventeenth century. There remains to be noticed, 
 Paris Garden, famous for its cruel but well-patronised 
 sports. Its popular circus was converted by Hens- 
 lowe and Alleyn into a theatre. Here, the richest 
 receipts were made on the Sunday, till the law inter- 
 fered and put down these performances, the dear 
 delight of the Southwarkians and their visitors from 
 the opposite shore, of the olden time. 
 
 The supposed assertion of Taylor, the Water Poet, 
 has often been quoted, namely, that between Wind- 
 sor bridge and Gravesend there were not less than 
 forty thousand watermen, and that more than half of 
 these found employment in transporting the holiday 
 folks from the Middlesex to the Southwark shore of 
 the river, where the players were strutting their little 
 hour at the Globe, the Rose, and the Swan, and 
 Bruin was being baited in the adjacent gardens. A 
 misprint has decupled what was about the true num- 
 ber, and even of these many were so unskilful that 
 an act was passed in the very first year of King 
 James, for the protection of persons afloat, whether 
 on pleasure or serious business. 
 
 In Holy well Lane, near High Street, Shoreditch, 
 is the site of an old wooden structure, which bore 
 the distinctive name of " The Theatre," and was ac- 
 counted a sumptuous house, probably because of the 
 partial introduction of scenery there. In the early 
 part of Shakespeare's career, as author and actor, it 
 was closed, in consequence of proprietary disputes; 
 and with the materials the Globe, at Bankside, was 
 rebuilt or considerably enlarged. There was a second
 
 PROLOGUE 31 
 
 theatre in this district called " The Curtain," a name 
 still retained in Curtain Road. This house remained 
 open and successful, till the accession of Charles I., 
 subsequent to which time stage plays gave way to 
 exhibitions of athletic exercises. 
 
 This district was especially dramatic ; the popular 
 taste was not only there directed toward the stage, 
 but it was a district wherein many actors dwelt, and 
 consequently died. The baptismal register of St. 
 Leonard's contains Christian names which appear to 
 have been chosen with reference to the heroines of 
 Shakespeare ; and the record of burials bears the 
 name of many an old actor of mark whose remains 
 now lie within the churchyard. 
 
 Not a vestige, of course, exists of any of these 
 theatres ; and yet of a much older house, traces may 
 be seen by those who will seek them in remote Corn- 
 wall. 
 
 This relic of antiquity is called Piran Round. It 
 consists of a circular embankment, about ten feet 
 high, sloping backwards, and cut into steps for seats, 
 or standing-places. This embankment encloses a 
 level area of grassy ground, and stands in the middle 
 of a flat, wild heath. A couple of thousand specta- 
 tors could look down from the seats upon the grassy 
 circus which formed a stage of more than a hundred 
 feet in diameter. Here, in very early times, sports 
 were played and combats fought out, and rustic coun- 
 cils assembled. The ancient Cornish Mysteries here 
 drew tears and laughter from the mixed audiences of 
 the day. They were popular as late as the period 
 of Shakespeare. Of one of them, a five-act piece, 
 entitled, "The Creation of the World, with Noah's
 
 32 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Flood," the learned Davies Gilbert has given a trans- 
 lation. In this historical piece, played for edification 
 in Scripture history, the stage directions speak of 
 varied costumes, variety of scenery, and complicated 
 machinery, all on an open-air stage, whereon the del- 
 uge was to roll its billows, and the mimic world be 
 lost. This cataclysm achieved, the depressed spec- 
 tators were rendered merry. The minstrels piped, 
 the audience rose and footed it, and then, having had 
 their full of amusement, they who had converged, 
 from so many starting-points, upon Piran Round, 
 scattered again on their several ways homeward from 
 the ancient theatre, and, as the sun went down, 
 thinned away over the heath, the fishermen going 
 seaward, the miners inland, and the agricultural la- 
 bourers to the cottages and farmhouses which dotted, 
 here and there, the otherwise dreary moor. 
 
 Such is Piran Round described to have been, and 
 the "old house " is worthy of tender preservation, for 
 it once saved England from invasion ! About the 
 year 1600, "some strollers," as they are called in 
 Somer's Tracts, were playing late at night at Piran. 
 At the same time a party of Spaniards had landed 
 with the intention of surprising, plundering, and burn- 
 ing the village. As the enemy were silently on their 
 way to this consummation, the players, who were 
 representing a battle, " struck up a loud alarum with 
 drum and trumpet on the stage, which the enemy 
 hearing, thought they were discovered, made some 
 few idle shots, and so in a hurly-burly fled to their 
 boats. And thus the townsmen were apprised of 
 their danger, and delivered from it at the same 
 time."
 
 PROLOGUE 33 
 
 Thus the players rescued the kingdom ! Their 
 sons and successors were not so happy in rescuing 
 their king ; but the powerful enemies of each sup- 
 pressed both real and mimic kings. How they dealt 
 with the monarchs of the stage, our prologue at an 
 end, remains to be told.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PLAYERS 
 
 IT was in the eventful year of 1587, while Roman 
 Catholics were deploring the death of Mary Stuart ; 
 while Englishmen were exulting at the destruction 
 dealt by Drake to a hundred Spanish ships in the 
 port of Cadiz ; while the Puritan party was at angry 
 issue with Elizabeth ; while John Fox was lying 
 dead, and while Walsingham was actively impeding 
 the ways and means of Armada Philip, by getting his 
 bills protested at Genoa, that the little man, Gos- 
 son, in the parish of St. Botolph, of which he was 
 the incumbent, first nibbed his pen, and made it fly 
 furiously over paper, in wordy war against the stage 
 and stage-players. 
 
 When the Britons ate acorns and drank water, he 
 says, they were giants and heroes ; but since plays 
 came in they had dwindled into a puny race, incapa- 
 ble of noble and patriotic achievements! And yet 
 next year, some pretty fellows of that race were 
 sweeping the invincible Armada from the surface of 
 our seas ! 
 
 When London was talking admiringly of the coro- 
 nation of Charles I., and Parliament was barely 
 according him one pound in twelve of the money- 
 aids of which he was in need, there was another 
 
 34
 
 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PLAYERS 35 
 
 pamphleteer sending up his testimony from Cheap- 
 side to Westminster, against the alleged abomination 
 of plays and players. This writer entitles his work 
 "A Short Treatise against Stage Plays," and he 
 makes it as sharp as it is short. Plays were invented 
 by heathens; they must necessarily be prejudicial to 
 Christians ! that is the style of his assertion and argu- 
 ment. They were invented to appease false gods ; 
 consequently, the playing of them must excite to 
 wrath a true Deity ! They are no recreation, be- 
 cause people come away from them wearied. The 
 argument, in tragedy, he informs us, is murder ; in 
 comedy, it is social vice. This he designates as 
 bad instruction ; and remembering Field's query to 
 Sutton, he would very much like to know in what 
 page of Holy Writ authority is given for the vocation 
 of an actor. He might as well have asked for the 
 suppression of tailors, on the ground of their never 
 being once named in either the Old Testament or 
 the New ! 
 
 But this author finds condemnation there of " stage 
 effects" rehearsed or unrehearsed. You deal with 
 the judgments of God in tragedy and laugh over the 
 sins of men in comedy ; and thereupon he reminds 
 you, and not very appositely, that Ham was accursed 
 for deriding his father ! Players change their apparel 
 and put on women's attire, as if they had never 
 read a chapter in Deuteronomy in their lives! If 
 coming on the stage under false representation of 
 their natural names and persons be not an offence 
 against the Epistle to Timothy, he would thank you 
 to inform him what it is ! As to looking on these 
 pleasant evils and not falling into sin, you have
 
 36 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 heard of Job and King David, and you are worse than 
 a heathen if you do not remember what they looked 
 upon with innocent intent, or if you have forgotten 
 what came of the looking. 
 
 He reminds parents that, while they are at the 
 play, there are wooers who are carrying off the hearts 
 of their daughters at home ; perhaps the very daugh- 
 ters themselves from home. This seems to me to be 
 less an argument against resorting to the theatre than 
 in favour of your taking places for your "young 
 ladies " as well as for yourselves. The writer looks 
 too wide abroad to see what lies at his feet. He is 
 in Asia citing the Council of Laodicea against the 
 theatre. He is in Africa vociferating, as the Council 
 of Carthage did, against audiences. He is in Europe, 
 at Aries, where the fathers decided that no actor 
 should be admitted to the sacrament. Finally, he 
 unites all these councils together at Constantinople, 
 and in a three-piled judgment sends stage, actors, 
 and audiences to Gehenna. 
 
 If you would only remember that many royal and 
 noble men have been slain when in the theatre, on 
 their way thither, or returning thence, you will have 
 a decent horror of risking a similar fate in like local- 
 ities. He has known actors who have died after the 
 play was over ; he would fain have you believe that 
 there is something in that. And when he has inti- 
 mated that theatres have been burnt and audiences 
 suffocated ; that stages have been swept down by 
 storms and spectators trodden to death ; that less 
 than forty years previous to the time of his writing 
 eight persons had been killed and many more wounded 
 by the fall of a London playhouse ; and that a simi-
 
 37 
 
 lar calamity had lately occurred in the city of Lyons, 
 the writer conceives he has advanced sufficient 
 argument, and administered more than enough of 
 admonition to deter any person from entering a 
 theatre henceforth and for ever. 
 
 This paper pellet had not long been printed when 
 the vexed author might have seen four actors sailing 
 joyously along the Strand. There they are, Master 
 Moore (there were no managers then ; they were 
 "masters" till the Georgian era), Master Moore, 
 heavy Foster, mirthful Guilman, and airy Townsend. 
 The master carries in his pocket a royal license to 
 form a company, whose members, in honour of the 
 king's sister, shall be known as " the Lady Elizabeth's 
 servants ; " with permission to act when and where 
 they please in and about the city of London unless 
 when the plague shall be more than ordinarily 
 prevalent. 
 
 There was no present opportunity to touch these 
 licensed companies ; and, accordingly, a sect of men 
 who professed to unite loyalty with orthodoxy, look- 
 ing eagerly about them for offenders, detected an 
 unlicensed fraternity playing a comedy in the old 
 house, before noticed, of Sir John Yorke. The result 
 of this was the assembling of a nervously agitated 
 troop of offenders in the Star Chamber. One Chris- 
 topher Mallory was made the scapegoat, for the satis- 
 factory reason that in the comedy alluded to he had 
 represented the devil, and in the last scene descended 
 through the stage with a figure of King James on 
 his back, remarking the while that such was the road 
 by which all Protestants must necessarily travel ! 
 Poor Mallory, condemned to fine and imprisonment,
 
 38 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 vainly observed that there were two points, he 
 thought, in his favour that he had not played in 
 the piece and had not been even present in the 
 house ! 
 
 Meanwhile the public flocked to their favourite 
 houses, and fortune seemed to be most blandly smil- 
 ing on " masters," when there suddenly appeared the 
 monster mortar manufactured by Prynne, and dis- 
 charged by him over London with an attendant 
 amount of thunder, which shook every building in 
 the metropolis. Prynne had just previously seen the 
 painters busily at work in beautifying the old " For- 
 tune," and the decorators gilding the horns of the 
 " Red Bull." He had been down to Whitefriars, 
 and had there beheld a new theatre rising near the 
 old time-honoured site. He was unable to be longer 
 silent, and in 1633 out came his " Histrio-Mastix," 
 consisting, from title-page to finis, of a thousand and 
 several hundred pages. 
 
 Prynne, in some sense, did not lead opinion against 
 the stage, but followed that of individuals who suf- 
 fered certain discomfort from their vicinity to the 
 chief house in Blackfriars. In 1631 the church- 
 wardens and constables petitioned Laud, on behalf 
 of the whole parish, for the removal of the players, 
 whose presence was a grievance, it was asserted, to 
 Blackfriars generally. The shopkeepers affirm that 
 their goods, exposed to sale, are swept off their 
 stalls by the coaches and people sweeping onward to 
 the playhouse ; that the concourse is so great, the 
 inhabitants are unable to take beer or coal into their 
 houses while it continues ; that to get through Lud- 
 gate to the water is just impossible; and if a fire
 
 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PLAYERS 39 
 
 break out, Heaven help them, how can succour be 
 brought to the sufferers through such mobs of men 
 and vehicles ? Christenings are disturbed in their 
 joy by them, and the sorrow of burials intruded on. 
 Persons of honour dare not go abroad, or, if abroad, 
 dare not venture home while the theatre is open. 
 And then there is that other house, Edward Alleyn's, 
 rebuilding in Golden Lane, and will not the Council 
 look to it ? 
 
 The Council answer that Queen Henrietta Maria 
 is well affected toward plays, and that therefore 
 good regulation is more to be provided than sup- 
 pression decreed. There must not be more than two 
 houses, they say ; one on Bankside, where the lord 
 chamberlain's servants may act ; the other in Middle- 
 sex, for which license may be given to Alleyn, "ser- 
 vant of the lord admiral," in Golden Lane. Each 
 company is to play but twice a week, " forbearing to 
 play on the Sabbath Day, in Lent, and in times of 
 infection." 
 
 Here is a prospect for old Blackfriars, but it is 
 doomed to fall. The house had been condemned in 
 1619, and cannot longer be tolerated. But compen- 
 sation must be awarded. The players, bold fellows, 
 claim ^21,000! The referees award ^"3,000, and 
 the delighted inhabitants offer ;ioo toward it to 
 get rid of the people who resort to the players 
 rather than of the players themselves. 
 
 Then spake out Prynne. He does not tell us how 
 many prayer-books had been recently published, but 
 he notes, with a cry of anguish, the printing of forty 
 thousand plays within the last two years. "There 
 are five devils' chapels," he says, " in London ; and
 
 40 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 yet in more extensive Rome, in Nero's days, there 
 were but three, and those," he adds, " were three too 
 many!" When a writer gets beyond statistics he 
 grows rude ; but he was sincere, and accepted all the 
 responsibility of the course taken by him, advisedly. 
 
 While the anger excited by this attack on pas- 
 times favoured by the king was yet hot, the assault 
 itself was met by a defiance. The gentlemen of the 
 Inns of Court closed their law-books, got up a mask, 
 and played it at Whitehall in the presence of a de- 
 lighted audience consisting of royal and noble per- 
 sonages. The most play-loving of the lords followed 
 the example afforded by the lawyers, and the king 
 himself assumed the buskin, and turned actor for the 
 nonce. Tom Carew was busy with superintending 
 the rehearsals of his " Ccelum Britannicum," and in 
 urging honest and melodious Will Lawes to progress 
 more rapidly with the music. Cavalier Will was not 
 to be hurried, but did his work steadily ; and Prynne 
 might have heard him and his brother Harry hum- 
 ming the airs over as they walked together across 
 the park to Whitehall. When the day of representa- 
 tion arrived, great was the excitement, and intense 
 the delight of some and the scorn of others. Among 
 the noble actors who rode down to the palace was 
 Rich, Earl of Holland. All passed off so pleasantly 
 that no one dreamed it was the inauguration of a 
 struggle in which Prynne was to lose his estate, his 
 freedom, and his ears ; the king and the earl their 
 heads ; while gallant Will Lawes, as honest a man 
 as any of them, was, a dozen years after, to be found 
 among the valiant dead who fell at the siege of Chester. 
 
 Ere this dtnofiement to a tragedy so mirthfully
 
 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PLAYERS 41 
 
 commenced had been reached, there were other defi- 
 ances cast in the teeth of audacious but too harshly- 
 treated Prynne. There was a reverend playwright 
 about town whom Eton loved and Oxford highly 
 prized ; Ben Jonson called him his "son," and Bishop 
 Fell, who presumed to give an opinion on subjects of 
 which he was ignorant, pronounced the Rev. William 
 Cartwright to be " the utmost that man could come 
 to!" For the Christ Church students at Oxford 
 Cartwright wrote the " Royal Slave," one of three 
 out of his four plays which sleep under a right- 
 eous oblivion. The king and queen went down to 
 witness the performance of the scholastic amateurs ; 
 and, considering that a main incident of the piece 
 comprises a revolt in order to achieve some reason- 
 able liberty for an oppressed people, the subject may 
 be considered more suggestive than felicitous. The 
 fortunes of many of the audience were about to 
 undergo mutation, but there was an actor there 
 whose prosperity commenced from that day. All 
 the actors played with spirit, but this especial one 
 manifested such self-possession, displayed such judg- 
 ment, and exhibited such powers of conception and 
 execution, that king, queen, and all the illustrious 
 audience showered down upon him applauses 
 hearty, loud, and long. His name was Busby. He 
 had been so poor that he received $ to enable him 
 to take his degree of B. A. Westminster was soon 
 to possess him, for nearly threescore years the most 
 famous of her "masters." "A very great man!" 
 said Sir Roger de Coverley ; " he whipped my grand- 
 father ! " 
 
 When Prynne, and Bastwick, and Burton re- 

 
 42 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 leased irom prison by the Long Parliament entered 
 London in triumph, with wreaths of ivy and rosemary 
 round their hats, the players who stood on the cause- 
 way, or at tavern windows, to witness the passing of 
 the victims, must have felt uneasy at their arch-enemy 
 being loose again. Between politics, perverse parties, 
 the plague, and the Parliament, the condition of the 
 actors fell from bad to worse. In a dialogue which 
 professedly passed at this time between Cane of the 
 "Fortune" and Reed of the "Friars," one of the 
 speakers deplores the going-out of all good old things, 
 and the other, sighingly, remarks that true Latin is 
 as little in fashion at Inns of Court as good clothes 
 are at Cambridge. At length arrived the fatal year 
 1647, when, after some previous attempts to abolish 
 the vocation of the actors, the Parliament disbanded 
 the army and suppressed the players. The latter 
 struggled manfully, but not so successfully, as the 
 soldiery. They were treated with less consideration ; 
 the decree of February, 1647, informed them that 
 they were no better than heathens ; that they were 
 intolerable to Christians ; that they were incorrigible 
 and vicious offenders, who would now be compelled 
 by whip, and stocks, and gyves, and prison fare, to 
 obey ordinances which they had hitherto treated with 
 contempt. Had not the glorious Elizabeth stigma- 
 tised them as " rogues," and the sagacious James as 
 " vagabonds ? " Mayors and sheriffs, and high and 
 low constables were let loose upon them, and encour- 
 aged to be merciless ; menace was piled upon menace ; 
 money penalties were hinted at in addition to cor- 
 poreal punishments and, after all, plays were 
 enacted in spite of this counter-enactment.
 
 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PLAYERS 43 
 
 But these last enactors were not to be trifled with ; 
 and the autumn saw accomplished what had not been 
 effected in the spring. The Perfect Weekly Account 
 for "Wednesday, Oct. 20, to Tuesday, Oct. 26," 
 informs its readers that on "Friday an ordinance 
 passed both Houses for suppressing of stage-plays, 
 which of late began to come in use again." The 
 ordinance itself is as uncivil a document as ever pro- 
 ceeded from ruffled authority ; and the framers clearly 
 considered that if they had not crushed the stage for 
 ever, they had unquestionably frozen out the actors 
 as long as the existing government should endure. 
 
 At this juncture, historians inform us that many 
 of the ousted actors took military service generally, 
 as was to be expected, on the royalist side. But, in 
 1647, the struggle was virtually over. The great 
 fire was quenched, and there was only a trampling 
 out of sparks and embers. Charles Hart, the actor, 
 grandson of Shakespeare's sister, holds a prom- 
 inent place among these players turned soldiers, as 
 one who rose to be a major in Rupert's Horse. 
 Charles Hart, however, was at this period only seven- 
 teen years of age, and more than a year and a half 
 had elapsed since Rupert had been ordered beyond 
 sea, for his weak defence of Bristol. Rupert's major 
 was, probably, that very "jolly good fellow" with 
 whom Pepys used to take wine and anchovies to such 
 excess as to make it necessary for his " girl " to rise 
 early, and fetch her sick master fresh water, where- 
 with to slake his thirst, in the morning. 
 
 The enrolment of actors in either army occurred 
 at an earlier period, and one Hart was certainly 
 among them. Thus Alleyn, erst of the Cockpit,
 
 44 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 filled the part of quartermaster-general to the king's 
 army at Oxford. Burt became a cornet, Shatterel 
 was something less dignified in the same branch of 
 the service, the cavalry. These survived to see 
 the old curtain once more drawn ; but record is made 
 of the death of one gallant player, said to be Will 
 Robinson, whom doughty Harrison encountered in 
 fight, and through whom he passed his terrible 
 sword, shouting at the same time : " Cursed is he 
 that doeth the work of the Lord negligently ! " This 
 serious bit of stage business would have been more 
 dramatically arranged had Robinson been encountered 
 by Swanston, a player of Presbyterian tendencies, 
 who served in the Parliamentary army. A " terrific 
 broadsword combat " between the two might have 
 been an encounter which both armies might have 
 looked at with interest, and supported by applause. 
 Of the military fortunes of the actors none was so 
 favourable as brave little Mohun's, who crossed to 
 Flanders, returned a major, and was subsequently set 
 down in the " cast " under his military title. Old 
 Taylor retired, with that original portrait of Shake- 
 speare to solace him, which was to pass by the hands 
 of Davenant, to that glory of our stage, "incompa- 
 rable Betterton." Pollard, too, withdrew, and lusty 
 Lowen, after a time, kicked both sock and buskin out 
 of sight, clapped on an apron, and appeared, with 
 well-merited success, as landlord of the Three Pigeons, 
 at Brentford. 
 
 The actors could not comprehend why their office 
 was suppressed, while the bear-baiters were putting 
 money in both pockets, and non-edifying puppet- 
 shows were enriching their proprietors. If Shake-
 
 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PLAYERS 45 
 
 speare was driven from Blackfriars and the Cockpit, 
 was it fair to allow " Bel and the Dragon " to be 
 enacted by dolls, at the foot of Holborn Bridge ? 
 The players were told that the public would profit by 
 the abolition of their vocation. Loose young gentle- 
 men, fast merchant-factors, and wild young appren- 
 tices were no longer to be seen, it was said, hanging 
 about the theatres, spending all their spare money, 
 much that they could not spare, and not a little which 
 was not theirs to spend. It was uncivilly suggested 
 that the actors were a merry sort of thieves, who 
 used to attach themselves to the puny gallants who 
 sought their society, and strip them of the gold 
 pieces in their pouches, the bodkin on their thighs, 
 the girdles buckled to give them shape, and the very 
 beavers jauntily plumed to lend them grace and 
 stature. 
 
 In some of the streets by the riverside a tragedy- 
 king or two found refuge with kinsfolk. The old 
 theatres stood erect and desolate, and the owners, 
 with hands in empty pockets, asked how they were 
 to be expected to pay ground rent, now that they 
 earned nothing ? whereas their afternoon share used 
 to be twenty ay, thirty shillings, sir ! And see, 
 the flag is still flying above the old house over the 
 water, and a lad who erst played under it looks up at 
 the banner with a proud sorrow. An elder actor 
 puts his hands on the lad's shoulder, and cries : 
 " Before the old scene is on again, boy, thy face will 
 be as battered as the flag there on the roof-top ! " 
 And as this elder actor passes on, he has a word 
 with a fellow mime who has been less provident than 
 he, and whose present necessities he relieves accord-
 
 46 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 ing to his means. Near them stand a couple of 
 deplorable-looking "doorkeepers," or, as we should 
 call them now, "money-takers," and the well-to-do 
 ex-actor has his illusive joke at their old rascality, 
 and affects to condole with them that the time is 
 gone by when they used to scratch their necks where 
 it itched not, and then dropped shilling and half- 
 crown pieces behind their collars ! But they were 
 not the only poor rogues who suffered by revolution. 
 That slipshod tapster, whom a guest is cudgelling at 
 a tavern-door, was once the proudest and most ex- 
 travagantly dressed of the tobacco-men whose notice 
 the smokers in the pit gingerly entreated, and who 
 used to vend, at a penny the pipeful, tobacco that 
 was not worth a shilling a cart-load. And behold 
 other evidences of the hardness of the times ! Those 
 shuffling fiddlers who so humbly peer through the 
 low windows into the tavern room, and meekly 
 inquire : " Will you have any music, gentlemen ? " 
 they are tuneful relics of the band who were wont to 
 shed harmony from the balcony above the stage, and 
 play in fashionable houses, at the rate of ten shillings 
 for each hour. Now, they shamble about in pairs, 
 and resignedly accept the smallest dole, and think 
 mournfully of the time when they heralded the 
 coming of kings, and softly tuned the dirge at the 
 burying of Ophelia ! 
 
 Even these have pity to spare for a lower class 
 than themselves, the journeyman playwrights, 
 whom the managers once retained at an annual sti- 
 pend and " beneficial second nights." The old play- 
 wrights were fain to turn pamphleteers, but their 
 works sold only for a penny, and that is the reason
 
 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PLAYERS 47 
 
 why those two shabby-genteel people, who have just 
 nodded sorrowfully to the fiddlers, are not joyously 
 tippling sack and Gascony wine, but are imbibing 
 unorthodox ale and heretical small beer. " Cttnctis 
 graviora cothurnis ! " murmurs the old actor whose 
 father was a schoolmaster ; " it's more pitiful than 
 any of your tragedies ! " 
 
 The distress was severe, but the profession had to 
 abide it. Much amendment was promised, if only 
 something of the old life might be pursued without 
 peril of the stocks cr the whipping-post. The authori- 
 ties would not heed these promises, but grimly smiled, 
 at the actors, who undertook to promote virtue ; 
 the poets, who engaged to be proper of speech ; the 
 managers, who bound themselves to prohibit the 
 entrance of all temptations into "the sixpenny 
 rooms ; " and the tobacco-men, who swore with 
 earnest irreverence, to vend nothing but the pure 
 Spanish leaf, even in the threepenny galleries. 
 
 But the tragedy which ended with the killing of 
 the king gave sad hearts to the comedians, who were 
 in worse plight than before, being now deprived of 
 hope itself. One or two contrived to print and sell 
 old plays for their own benefit ; a few authors con- 
 tinued to add a new piece, now and then, to the 
 stock, and that there were readers for them we may 
 conjecture from the fact of the advertisements which 
 began to appear in the papers, sometimes of the 
 publication of a solitary play, at another of the entire 
 dramatic works of that most noble lady, the Marchion- 
 ess of Newcastle. The actors themselves united 
 boldness with circumspection. Richard Cox, drop- 
 ping the words play and player, constructed a mixed
 
 48 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 entertainment in which he spoke and sang, and on 
 one occasion so aptly mimicked the character of an 
 artisan, that a master in the craft kindly and earnestly 
 offered to engage him. During the suppression, 
 Cowley's " Guardian " was privately played at Cam- 
 bridge. The authorities would seem to have winked 
 at these private representations, or to have declined 
 noticing them until after the expiration of the period 
 within which the actors were exposed to punishment. 
 Too great audacity, however, was promptly and se- 
 verely visited, fr m the earliest days after the issuing 
 of the prohibitory decree. A first-rate troupe obtained 
 possession of the Cockpit for a few days, in 1648. 
 They had played, unmolested, for three days, and 
 were in the very midst f the "Bloody Brother," on 
 the fourth, when the house was invaded by the 
 Puritan soldiery, the actors captured, the audience 
 dispersed, and the seats and the stage righteously 
 smashed into fragments. The players (some of them 
 the most accomplished of their day) were paraded 
 through the streets in all their stage finery, and 
 clapped into the Gate House and other prisons, 
 whence they were too happy to escape, after much 
 unseemly treatment, at the cost of all the theatrical 
 property which they had carried on their backs into 
 durance vile. 
 
 This severity, visited in other houses as well as 
 the Cockpit, caused some actors .o despair, while it 
 rendered others only a little more discreet. Rhodes, 
 the old prompter at Blackfriars, turned bookseller, 
 and opened a shop at Charing Cross. There he and 
 one Betterton, an ex-under-cook in the kitchen of 
 Charles I., who lived in Tothill Street, talked mourn-
 
 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PLAYERS 49 
 
 fully over the past, and, according to their respective 
 humours, of the future. The cook's sons listened 
 the while, and one of them especially took delight in 
 hearing old stories of players, and in cultivating an 
 acquaintance with the old theatrical bookseller. In 
 the neighbourhood of the ex-prompter's shop, knots 
 of very slenderly built players used to congregate at 
 certain seasons. A delegate from their number 
 might be seen whispering to the citizen captain in 
 command at Whitehall, who, as wicked people re- 
 ported, consented, for a "consideration," not to bring 
 his redcoats down to the Bull or other localities 
 where private stages were erected, especially during 
 the time of Bartholomew Fair, Christmas, and other 
 joyous tides. To his shame be it recorded, the cap- 
 tain occasionally broke his promise, or the poor actors 
 had fallen short in their purchase-money of his pledge, 
 and in the very middle of the piece the little theatre 
 would be invaded, and the audience be rendered 
 subject to as much virtuous indignation as the 
 actors. 
 
 The cause of the latter, however, found supporters 
 in many of the members of the aristocracy. Close 
 at hand, near Rhodes's shop, lived Lord Hatton, first 
 of the four peers so styled. His house was in Scot- 
 land Yard. His lands had gone by forfeiture, but 
 the proud old Cheshire landowner cared more for 
 the preservation of the deed by which he and his 
 ancestors had held them, than he did for the loss of 
 the acres themselves. Hatton was the employer, so 
 to speak, of Dugdale, and the patron of literary men 
 and of actors, and it must be added of very 
 frivolous company besides. He devoted much time
 
 $0 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 to the preparation of a Book of Psalms and the ill- 
 treatment of his wife ; and was altogether an eccentric 
 personage, for he recommended Lambert's daughter 
 as a personally and politically suitable wife for Charles 
 II., and afterward discarded his own eldest son for 
 marrying that incomparable lady. In Hatton, the 
 players had a supreme patron in town ; and they 
 found friends as serviceable to them in the noblemen 
 and gentlemen residing a few miles from the capital. 
 These patrons opened their houses to the actors, for 
 stage representations ; but even this private patronage 
 had to be distributed discreetly. Goffe, the light- 
 limbed lad who used to play women's parts at the 
 " Blackfriars," was generally employed as messenger 
 to announce individually to the audience when they 
 were to assemble, and to the actors the time and 
 place for the play. One of the mansions wherein 
 these dramatic entertainments were most frequently 
 given, was Holland House, Kensington. It was then 
 held and inhabited by the widowed countess of that 
 unstable Earl of Holland, whose head had fallen on 
 the scaffold, in March, 1649 5 but this granddaughter 
 of old Sir Walter Cope, who lost Camden House at 
 cards to a Cheapside mercer, Sir Baptist Hicks, was 
 a strong-minded woman, and perhaps found some 
 consolation in patronising the pleasures which the 
 enemies of her defunct lord so stringently prohibited. 
 When the play was over, a collection was made 
 among the noble spectators, whose contributions were 
 divided between the players, according to the measure 
 of their merits. This done, they wended their way 
 down the avenue to the high-road, where probably, 
 on some bright summer afternoon, if a part of them
 
 5 1 
 
 prudently returned afoot to town, a joyous but less 
 prudent few " paddled it " to Brentford, and made a 
 short but glad night of it with their brother of the 
 "Three Pigeons." 
 
 At the most this was but a poor life ; but such as 
 it was, the players were obliged to make the best of 
 it. If they were impatient, it was not without some 
 reason, for though Oliver despised the stage, he could 
 condescend to laugh at, and with, men of less dignity 
 in their vocation than actors. Buffoonery was not 
 entirely expelled from his otherwise grave court. At 
 the marriage festival of his daughter Frances and his 
 son-in-law, Mr. Rich, the Protector would not tolerate 
 the utterance of a line from Shakespeare, expressed 
 from the lips of a player ; but there were hired buf- 
 foons at that entertainment, which they well-nigh 
 brought to a tragical conclusion. A couple of these 
 saucy fellows seeing Sir Thomas Hillingsley, the old 
 gentleman-usher to the Queen of Bohemia, gravely 
 dancing, sought to excite a laugh by trying to blacken 
 his face with a burnt cork. The high-bred, solemn 
 old gentleman was so aroused to anger by this un- 
 seemly audacity, that he drew his dagger, and, but 
 for swift interference, would have run it beneath the 
 fifth rib of the most active of his rude assailants. On 
 this occasion, Cromwell himself was almost as lively 
 as the hired jesters ; snatching off the wig of his son 
 Richard, he feigned to fling it in the fire, but suddenly 
 passing the wig under him, and seating himself upon 
 it, he pretended that it had been destroyed, amid the 
 servile applause of the edified spectators. The actors 
 might reasonably have argued that "Hamlet," in 
 Scotland Yard or at Holland House, was a more
 
 52 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 worthy entertainment than such grown-up follies in 
 the gallery at Whitehall. 
 
 Those follies ceased to be ; Oliver had passed away, 
 and Richard had laid down the greatness which had 
 never sat well upon him. Important changes were 
 at hand, and the merry rattle of Monk's drums com- 
 ing up Gray's Inn Road, welcomed by thousands of 
 dusty spectators, announced no more cheering pros- 
 pect to any class than to the actors. The Oxford 
 vintner's son, Will Davenant, might be seen bustling 
 about in happy hurry, eagerly showing young Better- 
 ton how Taylor used to play Hamlet, under the 
 instruction of Burbage, and announcing bright days 
 to open-mouthed Kynaston, ready at a moment's 
 warning to leap over his master's counter, and take 
 his standing at the balcony as the smooth-cheeked 
 Juliet. 
 
 Meanwhile, beaming old Rhodes, with a head full 
 of memories of the joyous Blackfriars' days, and the 
 merry afternoons over the water, at the Globe, leaving 
 his once apprentice, Betterton, listening to Davenant' s 
 stage histories, and Kynaston, not yet out of his 
 time, longing to flaunt it before an audience, took 
 his own way to Hyde Park, where Monk was en- 
 camped, and there obtained, in due time, from that 
 far-seeing individual, license to once more raise the 
 theatrical flag, enrol the actors, light up the stage, 
 and, in a word, revive the English theatre. In a few 
 days the drama commenced its new career in the 
 Cockpit, in Drury Lane ; and this fact seemed so 
 significant, as to the character of General Monk's 
 tastes, that, subsequently, when he and the Council 
 of State dined in the city halls, the companies treated
 
 THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE PLAYERS 53 
 
 their guests, after dinner, with satirical farces, such 
 as " Citizen and Soldier," " Country Tom " and " City 
 Dick," with, as the newspapers inform us, "dancing 
 and singing, many shapes and ghosts, and the like ; 
 and all to please his Excellency the Lord General." 
 
 The English stage owes a debt of gratitude to 
 both Monk and Rhodes. The former made glorious 
 summer of the actors' winter of discontent ; and the 
 latter inaugurated the Restoration by introducing 
 young Betterton. The son of Charles I.'s cook was, 
 for fifty-one years, the pride of the English theatre. 
 His acting was witnessed by more than one old 
 contemporary of Shakespeare, the poet's younger 
 brother being among them, he surviving till shortly 
 after the accession of Charles II. The destitute 
 actors warmed into life and laughter again beneath 
 the sunshine of his presence. His dignity, his mar- 
 vellous talent, his versatility, his imperishable fame, 
 are all well known and acknowledged. His industry 
 is indicated by the fact that he created one hundred 
 and thirty new characters! Among them were 
 Jaffier and Valentine, three Virginiuses, and Sir 
 John Brute. He was as mirthful in Falstaff as he 
 was majestic in Alexander ; and the craft of his 
 Ulysses, the grace and passion of his Hamlet, the 
 terrible force of his Othello, were not more remark- 
 able than the low comedy of his Old Bachelor, the 
 airiness of his Woodville, or the cowardly bluster 
 of his Thersites. The old actors who had been 
 frozen out, and the new who had, much to learn, 
 could not have rallied round a more noble or a 
 worthier chief ; for Betterton was not a greater actor 
 than he was a true and honourable gentleman. Only
 
 54 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 for him, the old frozen-outs would have fared but 
 badly. He enriched himself and them, and, as long 
 as he lived, gave dignity to his profession. The 
 humble lad, born in Tothill Street, before monarchy 
 and the stage went down, had a royal funeral in 
 Westminster Abbey, after dying in harness almost 
 in sight of the lamps. He deserved no less, for he 
 was the king of an art which had well-nigh perished 
 in the Commonwealth times, and he was a monarch 
 who probably has never since had, altogether, his 
 equal. Off, as on the stage, he was exemplary in 
 his bearing ; true to every duty ; as good a country 
 gentleman on his farm in Berkshire as he was perfect 
 actor in town; pursuing with his excellent wife the 
 even tenor of his way ; not tempted by the vices of 
 his time, nor disturbed by its politics ; not tippling 
 like Underbill ; not plotting and betraying the plotters 
 against William, like Goodman, nor carrying letters 
 for a costly fee between London and St. Germains, 
 like Scudamore. If there had been a leading player 
 on the stage in 1647, with the qualities, public and 
 private, which distinguished Betterton, there perhaps 
 would have been a less severe ordinance than that 
 which inflicted so much misery on the actors, and 
 which, after a long decline, brought about a fall ; 
 from which they were, however, as we shall see, 
 destined to rise and flourish.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE "BOY ACTRESSES" AND THE "YOUNG LADIES" 
 
 THE Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, is the "sacred 
 ground " of the English drama, since the restoration 
 of monarchy. At the Cockpit (Pitt Street remains 
 a memory of the place), otherwise called the Phcenix, 
 in the " lane " aboved named, the old English actors 
 had uttered their last words before they were silenced. 
 In a reconstruction of the edifice near, rather than 
 on, the old site, the young English actors, under 
 Rhodes, built their new stage, and wooed the willing 
 town. 
 
 There was some irregularity in the first steps 
 made to reestablish the stage, which, after an uneasy 
 course of about four years, was terminated by Charles 
 II., who, in 1663, granted patents for two theatres, 
 and no more, in London. Under one patent, Killi- 
 grew, at the head of the king's company (the Cockpit 
 being closed), opened at the new theatre in Drury 
 Lane, in August, 1663, with a play of the olden 
 time, the " Humourous Lieutenant," of Beaumont 
 and Fletcher. Under the second patent, Davenant 
 and the Duke of York's company found a home, 
 first at the old Cockpit, then in Salisbury Court, 
 Fleet Street, the building of which was commenced 
 in 1660, on the site of the old granary of Salisbury 
 
 S3
 
 56 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 House, which had served for a theatre in the early 
 years of the reign of Charles I. This little stage 
 was lapped up by the great tongue of fire, by which 
 many a nobler edifice was destroyed, in 1666. But 
 previous to the fire, thence went Davenant and the 
 duke's troupe to the old Tennis Court, the first of 
 the three theatres in Portugal Row, on the south 
 side of Lincoln's Inn Fields, from which the houses 
 took their name. 
 
 In 1671, Davenant being dead, the company, under 
 the nominal management of his widow, migrated to 
 a house designed by Wren, and decorated by Grin- 
 ling Gibbons. This was the Duke's Theatre, in 
 Dorset Gardens. It was in close proximity to the 
 old Salisbury Court Theatre, and it presented a 
 double face, one -to ward Fleet Street, the other 
 overlooking the terrace which gave access to visitors 
 who came by the river. Later, this company was 
 housed in Lincoln's Inn Fields again ; but it migrated, 
 in 1732, to Covent Garden, under Rich. Rich's 
 house was burnt down in 1808, and its successor, 
 built by Smirke, was destroyed in 1856. On the 
 site of the latter now stands the Royal Italian Opera, 
 the representative, in its way, of the line of houses 
 wherein the duke's company struggled against their 
 competitors of the king's. 
 
 The first house of those competitors in Drury 
 Lane was burnt in 1672, but the king's company 
 took refuge in the " Fields " till Wren built the new 
 house, opened in 1674. The two troupes remained 
 divided, yet not opposed, each keeping to its recog- 
 nised stock pieces, till 1682, when Killigrew, having 
 "shuffled off this mortal coil," the two companies,
 
 THE BOY ACTRESSES AND THE YOUNG LADIES 57 
 
 after due weeding, formed into one, and abandoning 
 Lincoln's Inn to the tennis-players, Dorset Gardens 
 to the wrestlers, and both to decay, they opened at 
 the New Drury, built by Sir Christopher, on the 
 1 6th of November, 1682. Wren's theatre was taken 
 down in 1791; its successor, built by Holland, was 
 opened in 1794, and was destroyed in 1809. The 
 present edifice is the fourth which has occupied a 
 site in Drury Lane. It is the work of Wyatt, and 
 was opened in 1 8 1 2. 
 
 Thus much for the edifice of the theatres of the 
 last half of the seventeenth century. Before we 
 come to the " ladies and gentlemen " who met upon 
 the respective stages, and strove for the approval 
 of the town, let me notice that, after the death of 
 Oliver, Davenant publicly exhibited a mixed enter- 
 tainment, chiefly musical, but which was not held 
 to be an infringement of the law against the acting 
 of plays. Early in May, 1659, Evelyn writes: "I 
 went to see a new opera, after the Italian way, in 
 recitative music and scenes, much inferior to the 
 Italian composure and magnificence ; but it was 
 prodigious, that in a time of such public consterna- 
 tion, such a vanity should be kept up or permitted." 
 That these musical entertainments were something 
 quite apart from "plays," is manifest by another 
 entry in Evelyn's diary, in January, 1661 : "After 
 divers years since I had seen any play, I went to 
 see acted 'The Scornful Lady,' at a new theatre 
 in Lincoln's Inn Fields." 
 
 Of Shakespeare's brother Charles, who lived to 
 this period, Oldys says : " This opportunity made the 
 actors greedily inquisitive into every little circum-
 
 $8 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 stance, more especially in Shakespeare's dramatic 
 character, which his brother could relate of him. But 
 he, it seems, was so stricken in years, and possibly 
 his memory so weakened by infirmities (which might 
 make him the easier pass for a man of weak intel- 
 lects), that he could give them but little light into 
 their inquiries ; and all that could be recollected from 
 him of his brother Will in that station, was the faint, 
 general, and almost lost ideas he had of having once 
 seen him act a part in one of his own comedies, 
 wherein being to personate a decrepit old man, he 
 wore a long beard, and appeared so weak and droop- 
 ing, and unable to walk, that he was forced to be 
 supported and carried by another person to a table, 
 at which he was seated among some company who 
 were eating, and one of them sung a song." This 
 description applies to old Adam, in "As You Like 
 It ; " and he who feebly shadowed it forth formed 
 a link which connected the old theatre with the 
 new. 
 
 The principal actors in Killigrew's company, from 
 which that of Drury Lane is descended, were Bate- 
 man, Baxter, Bird (Theophilus), Blagden, Burt, Cart- 
 wright, Clun, Duke, Hancock, Hart, Kynaston, Lacy, 
 Mohun, the Shatterels (William and Robert), and 
 Wintersel. Later additions gave to this company 
 Beeston, Bell, Charleton, " Scum " Goodman, Griffin, 
 Hains, Joe Harris, Hughes, Lyddoll, Reeves, and 
 Shirley. 
 
 The "ladies" were Mrs. Corey, Eastland, Hughes, 
 Knep, the Marshalls (Anne and Rebecca), Rutter, 
 Uphill, whom Sir Robert Howard too tardily married, 
 and Weaver. Later engagements included those of
 
 THE BOY ACTRESSES AND THE YOUNG LADIES 59 
 
 Mrs. Boutel, Gwyn (Nell), James, Reeves, and Ver- 
 juice. These were sworn at the lord chamberlain's 
 office to serve the king. Of the "gentlemen," ten 
 were enrolled on the royal household establishment, 
 and provided with liveries of scarlet cloth and silver 
 lace. In the warrants of the lord chamberlain they 
 were styled " Gentlemen of the Great Chamber ; " 
 and they might have pointed to this fact as proof of 
 the dignity of their profession. 
 
 The company first got together by Rhodes, subse- 
 quently enlarged by Davenant, and sworn to serve 
 the Duke of York, at Lincoln's Inn Fields, was in 
 some respects superior to that of Drury Lane. 
 Rhodes's troupe included the great Betterton, Dixon, 
 Lilliston, Lovel, Nokes (Robert), and six lads em- 
 ployed to represent female characters, Angel, Will- 
 iam Betterton, a brother of the great actor (drowned 
 early in life, at Wallingford), Floid, Kynaston (for 
 a time), Mosely, and Nokes (Janus). Later, Davenant 
 added Blagden, Harris, Price, and Richards ; Med- 
 bourn, Norris, Sandford, Smith, and Young. The 
 actresses were Mrs. Davenport, Davies, Gibbs, 
 Holden, Jennings, Long, and Saunderson, whom 
 Betterton shortly after married. 
 
 This new fashion of actresses was a French 
 fashion, and the mode being imported from France, 
 a French company, with women among them, came 
 over to London. Hoping for the sanction of their 
 countrywoman, Queen Henrietta Maria, they estab- 
 lished themselves in Blackfriars. This essay excited 
 all the fury of Prynne, who called these actresses by 
 very unsavoury names ; but who, in styling them 
 " unwomanish and graceless," did not mean, to imply
 
 60 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 that they were awkward and unfeminine, but that 
 acting was unworthy of their sex, and unbecoming 
 women born in an era of grace. 
 
 "Glad am I to say," remarks as stout a Puritan as 
 Prynne, namely, Thomas Brand, in a comment ad- 
 dressed to Laud, " glad am I to say they were hissed, 
 hooted, and pippin-pelted from the stage, so that I do 
 not think they will soon be ready to try the same 
 again." Although Brand asserts "that all virtuous 
 and well-disposed persons in this town" were "justly 
 offended " at these women, " or monsters rather," as 
 Prynne calls them, "expelled from their own coun- 
 try," adds Brand, yet more sober-thinking people did 
 not fail to see the propriety of Juliet being repre- 
 sented by a girl rather than by a boy. Accordingly, 
 we hear of English actresses even before the Restora- 
 tion, mingled, however, with boys who shared with 
 them that "line of business." "The boy's a pretty 
 actor," says Lady Strangelove, in the "Court Beg- 
 gar," played at the Cockpit, in 1632, "and his mother 
 can play her part. The women now are in great 
 request." Prynne groaned at the " request " becom- 
 ing general. "They have now," he writes, in 1633, 
 "their female players in Italy and other foreign 
 parts." 
 
 Davenant's " Siege of Rhodes" was privately acted 
 by amateurs, including Matthew Locke and Henry 
 Purcell ; the parts of lanthe and Roxalana were 
 played by Mrs. Edward Coleman and another lady. 
 The piece is so stuffed with heroic deeds, heroic love, 
 and heroic generosity, that none more suitable could 
 be found for ladies to appear in. Nevertheless, when 
 Rhodes was permitted to reopen the stage, he could
 
 THE BOY ACTRESSES AND THE YOUNG LADIES 61 
 
 only assemble boys about him for his Evadnes, 
 Aspasias, and the other heroines of ancient tragedy. 
 Now, the resumption of the old practice of " wom- 
 en's parts being represented by men in the habits of 
 women" gave offence, and this is assigned as a 
 reason in the first patents, according to Killigrew and 
 Davenant, why those managers were authorised to 
 employ actresses to represent all female characters. 
 Killigrew was the first to avail himself of the privi- 
 lege. It was time. Some of Rhodes's "boys" 
 were men past forty, who frisked it as wenches of 
 fifteen ; even real kings were kept waiting because 
 theatrical queens had not yet shaved ; when they did 
 appear they looked like " the guard disguised," and 
 when the prompter called " Desdemona," " enter 
 giant ! " Who the lady was who first trod the stage 
 as a professional actress is not known ; but that she 
 belonged to Killigrew's company is certain. The 
 character she assumed was Desdemona, and she was 
 introduced by a prologue written for the occasion by 
 Thomas Jordan. It can hardly be supposed that she 
 was too modest to reveal her name, and that of Anne 
 Marshall has been suggested, as also that of Mar- 
 garet Hughes. On the 3d of January, 1661, Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher's " Beggar's Bush " was performed 
 at Killigrew's Theatre, " it being very well done," 
 says Pepys, " and here the first time that ever I saw 
 a woman come upon the stage." Davenant did not 
 bring forward his actresses before the end of June, 
 1 66 1, when he produced the second part of the 
 " Siege of Rhodes," with Mrs. Davenport as Roxa- 
 lana, and Mrs. Saunderson as lanthe; both these 
 ladies, with Mrs. Davies and Mrs. Long, boarded in
 
 62 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Davenant's house. Killigrew abused his privilege to 
 employ ladies. In 1664, his comedy, "The Parson's 
 Wedding," wherein the plague is made a comic inci- 
 dent of, connected with unexampled profligacy, was 
 acted, " I am told," are Pepys's own words, " by 
 nothing but women, at the King's House." 
 
 By this tune the vocation of the " boy actresses " 
 had altogether passed away ; and there only remains 
 for me to briefly trace the career of those Old World 
 representatives of the gentle or truculent heroines 
 depicted by our early dramatists. 
 
 There were three members of Killigrew' s, or the 
 king's company, who were admirable representatives 
 of female characters before the Civil Wars. These 
 were Hart, Burt, and Clun, all pupils of luckless 
 Robinson, slain in fight, who was himself an accom- 
 plished "actress." Of the three, Hart rose to the 
 greatest eminence. His Dutchess in Shirley's " Car- 
 dinal," was the most successful of his youthful parts. 
 After the Restoration, he laid down Cassio to take 
 Othello from Burt, by the king's command, and was 
 as great in the Moor as Betterton, at the other house, 
 was in Hamlet. His Alexander, which he created, 
 always filled the theatre ; and his dignity therein was 
 said to convey a lesson even to kings. His Brutus 
 was scarcely inferior, while his Catiline was so unap- 
 proachable, that when he died, Jonson's tragedy 
 died with him. Rymer styles him and Mohun the 
 jEsopus and Roscius of their time. When they 
 acted together (Amintor and Melantius) in the 
 " Maid's Tragedy," the town asked no greater treat. 
 Hart was one of Pepys's prime favourites. He was 
 a man whose presence delighted the eye before his
 
 THE BOY ACTRESSES AND THE YOUNG LADIES 63 
 
 accents enchanted the ear. The humblest character 
 entrusted to him was distinguished by his careful 
 study. On the stage he acknowledged no audience ; 
 their warmest applause could never draw him into 
 a moment's forgetfulness of his assumed character. 
 In Manly, "The Plain Dealer," as in Catiline, he 
 never found a successor who could equal him. His 
 salary was, at the most, ^3 a week, but he is said to 
 have realised 1,000 yearly, after he became a share- 
 holder in the theatre. He finally retired in 1682, 
 on a pension amounting to half his salary, which he 
 enjoyed, however, scarcely a year. He died of a 
 painful inward complaint in 1683, and was buried at 
 Stanmore Magna. 
 
 There is a tradition that Hart, Mohun, and Better- 
 ton fought on the king's side at Edgehill, in 1642. 
 The last named was then a child, and some things 
 are attributed to Charles Hart which belonged to his 
 father. If Charles was but eighteen when his name- 
 sake the king returned in 1660, it must have been 
 his father who was at Edgehill with Mohun, and who, 
 perhaps, played female characters in his early days. 
 
 Burt, after he left off the women's gear, acted 
 Cicero with rare ability, in " Catiline," for the getting 
 up of which piece Charles II. contributed ^500 for 
 robes. Of Clun, in or out of petticoats, the record is 
 brief. His lago was superior to Mohun' s, but Lacy 
 excelled him in the " Humourous Lieutenant ; " but as 
 Subtle, in the " Alchymist," he was the admiration of 
 all playgoers. After acting this comic part, Clun 
 made a tragic end on the night of the 3d of Au- 
 gust, 1664. With a lady hanging on his arm, and 
 some liquor lying under his belt, he was gaily passing
 
 64 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 on his way to his country lodgings in Kentish Town, 
 where he was assailed, murdered, and flung into a 
 ditch, by rogues, one of whom was captured, " an Irish 
 fellow most cruelly butchered and bound." "The 
 house will have a great miss of him," is the epitaph 
 of Pepys upon versatile Clun. 
 
 Of the boys belonging to Davenant's company, 
 who at first appeared in woman's bodice, but soon 
 found their occupation gone, some were of greater 
 fame than others. One of these, Angel, turned from 
 waiting-maids to low comedy, caricatured Frenchmen 
 and foolish lords. We hear nothing of him after 
 1673. The younger Betterton, as I have said, was 
 drowned at Wallingford. Mosely and Floid repre- 
 sented a vulgar class of women, and both died before 
 the year 1674 ; but Kynaston and James Nokes long 
 survived to occupy prominent positions on the stage. 
 
 Kynaston made "the loveliest lady," for a boy, 
 ever beheld by Pepys. This was in 1660, when 
 Kynaston played Olympia, the duke's sister, in the 
 " Loyal Subject ; " and went with a young fellow 
 actor to carouse, after the play, with Pepys and Cap- 
 tain Ferrers. Kynaston was a handsome fellow under 
 every guise. On the 7th of January, 1661, says 
 Pepys, " Tom and I, and my wife, went to the thea- 
 tre, and there saw ' The Silent Woman.' " Among 
 other things here, Kynaston, the boy, had the good 
 turn to appear in three shapes : " First, as a poor 
 woman, in ordinary clothes, to please morose; then, 
 in fine clothes as a gallant and in them was clearly 
 the prettiest woman in the whole house ; and lastly, 
 as a man and then likewise did appear the hand- 
 somest man in the house." When the play was
 
 THE BOY ACTRESSES AND THE YOUNG LADIES 65 
 
 concluded, and it was not the lad's humour to carouse 
 with the men, the ladies would seize on him, in his 
 theatrical dress, and carrying him to Hyde Park in 
 their coaches, be foolishly proud of the precious 
 freight which they bore with them. 
 
 Kynaston was not invariably in such good luck. 
 There was another handsome man, Sir Charles Sedley, 
 whose style of dress the young actor aped ; and his 
 presumption was punished by a ruffian, hired by the 
 baronet, who accosted Kynaston in St. James's Park, 
 as " Sir Charles," and thrashed him in that character. 
 The actor then mimicked Sir Charles on the stage. 
 A consequence was, that on the 3Oth of January, 
 1669, Kynaston was waylaid by three or four assail- 
 ants, and so clubbed by them that there was no play 
 on the following evening; and the victim, mightily 
 bruised, was forced to keep his bed. He did not 
 recover in less than a week. On the gth of Febru- 
 ary he reappeared, as the King of Tidore, in the 
 "Island Princess," which "he do act very well," says 
 Pepys, "after his beating by Sir Charles Sedley's 
 appointment." 
 
 The boy who used to play Evadne, and now enacted 
 the tyrants of the drama, retained a certain beauty to 
 the last. " Even at past sixty," Cibber tells us, "his 
 teeth were all sound, white, and even as one would 
 wish to see in a reigning toast of twenty." Colley 
 attributes the formal gravity of Kynaston's mien "to 
 the stately step he had been so early confined to in a 
 female decency." The same writer praises Kynas- 
 ton's Leon, in " Rule a Wife and Have a Wife," for 
 its determined manliness and honest authority. In 
 the heroic tyrants, his piercing eye, his quick, impet-
 
 66 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 uous tone, and the fierce, lion-like majesty of his bear- 
 ing and utterance, "gave the spectator a kind of 
 trembling admiration." 
 
 When Gibber played Syphax, in " Cato," he did 
 it as he thought Kynaston would have done, had he 
 been alive to impersonate the character. Kynaston 
 roared through the bombast of some of the dramatists 
 with a laughable earnestness ; but in Shakespeare's 
 monarchs he was every inch a king dignified and 
 natural. The true majesty of his Henry IV. was so 
 manifest that when he whispered to Hotspur, " Send 
 us your prisoners, or you'll hear of it," he conveyed, 
 says Gibber, " a more terrible menace in it than the 
 loudest intemperance of voice could swell to." Again, 
 in the interview between the dying king and his son, 
 the dignity, majestic grief, the paternal affection, the 
 injured, kingly feeling, the pathos and the justness of 
 the rebuke, were alike remarkable. The actor was 
 equal to the task assigned him by the author, put- 
 ting forth " that peculiar and becoming grace, which 
 the best writer cannot inspire into any actor that is 
 not born with it." 
 
 Kynaston remained on the stage from 1659 to 
 1699. By this time his memory began to fail and 
 his spirit to leave him. These imperfections, says 
 the generous Colley, " were visibly not his own, but 
 the effects of decaying nature." But Betterton's 
 nature was not thus decaying; and his labour had 
 been far greater than that of Kynaston, who created 
 only a score of original characters, the best known of 
 which are, Harcourt, in the " Country Wife ; " Free- 
 man, in the " Plain Dealer ; " and Count Baldwin, in 
 " Isabella, or the Fatal Marriage." His early practice,
 
 THE BOY ACTRESSES AND THE YOUNG LADIES 67 
 
 in representing female characters, affected his voice in 
 some disagreeable way. " What makes you feel 
 sick ? " said Kynaston to Powell suffering from a 
 too riotous "last night." "How can I feel other- 
 wise," asked Powell, "when I hear your voice?" 
 
 Edward Kynaston died in 1712, and lies buried in 
 the churchyard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. If not 
 the greatest actor of his day, Kynaston was the great- 
 est of the "boy actresses." So exalted was his rep- 
 utation, " that," says Downes, " it has since been 
 disputable among the judicious, whether any woman 
 that succeeded him so sensibly touched the audience 
 as he." 
 
 In one respect he was more successful than Better- 
 ton, for he not only made a fortune, but kept what 
 he had made, and left it to his only son. This son 
 improved the bequest by his industry, as a mercer in 
 Covent Garden ; and, probably remembering that he 
 was well descended from the Kynaston s of Oteley, 
 Salop, he sent his own son to college, and lived to 
 see him ordained. This Reverend Mr. Kynaston pur- 
 chased the impropriation of Aldgate ; and, despite 
 the vocations of his father and grandfather, but in 
 consequence of the prudence and liberality of both, 
 was willingly acknowledged by his Shropshire kins- 
 men. 
 
 Kynaston's contemporary, James Nokes, was as 
 prudent and as fortunate as he ; but James was not 
 so well descended. His father (and he himself for a 
 time) was a city toyman not so well-to-do, but he 
 allowed his sons to go on the stage, where Robert 
 was a respectable actor, and James, after a brief exer- 
 cise of female characters, was admirable in his pecul-
 
 68 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 iar line. The toyman's son became a landholder, 
 and made of his nephew a lord of the soil. Thus, 
 even in those days of small salaries, players could 
 build up fortunes ; because the more prudent among 
 them nursed the little they could spare, with care, 
 and of that little made the very utmost. 
 
 Nokes was, to the last night of his career, famous 
 for his impersonation of the nurse in two plays ; first, 
 in that strange adaptation by Otway, of " Romeo and 
 Juliet " to a Roman tragedy, " Caius Marius ; " and 
 secondly, in Nevil Payne's fierce, yet not bombastic 
 drama, " Fatal Jealousy." Of the portraits to be 
 found in Gibber's gallery, one of the most perfect, 
 drawn by Colley's hand, is that of James Nokes. 
 Gibber attributes his general excellence to "a plain 
 and palpable simplicity of nature, which was so utterly 
 his own, that he was often as accountably diverting 
 in his common speech as on the stage." His very 
 conversation was an unctuous acting ; and, in the 
 truest sense of the word, he was " inimitable." Gibber 
 himself, accomplished mimic as he was, confessedly 
 failed in every attempt to reproduce the voice and 
 manner of James Nokes, who identified himself with 
 every part so easily, as to reap a vast amount of fame 
 at the cost of hardly an hour's study. His range was 
 through the entire realm of broad comedy, and Gib- 
 ber thus photographs him for the entertainment of 
 posterity : 
 
 " He scarce ever made his first entrance in a play 
 but he was received with an involuntary applause ; 
 not of hands only, for those may be, and have often 
 been, partially prostituted and bespoken, but by a 
 general laughter, which the very sight of him pro-
 
 THE BOY ACTRESSES AND THE YOUNG LADIES 69 
 
 voked, and nature could not resist ; yet the louder 
 the laugh, the graver was his look upon it ; and sure 
 the ridiculous solemnity of his features was enough 
 to have set a whole bench of bishops into a titter, 
 could he have been honoured (may it be no offence to 
 suppose it) with such grave and right reverend audi- 
 tors. In the ludicrous distresses which, by the laws 
 of comedy, folly is often involved in, he sunk into 
 such a mixture of piteous pusillanimity, and a con- 
 sternation so ruefully ridiculous and inconsolable, that 
 when he had shook you to a fatigue of laughter, 
 it became a moot point whether you ought not to 
 have pitied him. When he debated any matter by 
 himself, he would shut up his mouth with a dumb, 
 studious pout, and roll his full eye into such a vacant 
 amazement, such a palpable ignorance of what to think 
 of it, that his silent perplexity (which would some- 
 times hold him several minutes) gave your imagina- 
 tion as full content as the most absurd thing he could 
 say open it." 
 
 This great comic actor was naturally of a grave and 
 sober countenance ; " but the moment he spoke, the 
 settled seriousness of his features was utterly dis- 
 charged, and a dry, drolling, or laughing levity took 
 such full possession of him, that I can only refer the 
 idea of him to your imagination." His clear and 
 audible voice better fitted him for burlesque heroes, 
 like Jupiter Ammon, than his middle stature ; but 
 the pompous inanity of his travestied pagan divinity 
 was as wonderful as the rich stolidity of his con- 
 tentedly ignorant fools. 
 
 There was no actor whom the city so rejoiced in 
 as Nokes ; there was none whom the court more
 
 70 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 delighted to honour. In May, 1670, Charles II., and 
 troops of courtiers, went down to Dover to meet the 
 queen-mother, and took with them the Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields comedians. When Henrietta Maria arrived, 
 with her suite of French ladies and gentlemen, the 
 latter attired, according to the prevailing fashion, 
 in very short blue or scarlet laced coats, with broad 
 sword-belts, the English comedians played before the 
 royal host and his guests the play founded on Moliere's 
 "ficole des Femmes," and called "Sir Solomon." 
 Nokes acted Sir Arthur Addel, in dressing for which 
 part he was assisted by the Duke of Monmouth. 
 In order that he might the better ape the French 
 mode, the duke took off his own sword and belt, and 
 buckled them to the actor's side. At his first en- 
 trance on the stage, king and court broke into unex- 
 tinguishable laughter, so admirably were the foreign 
 guests caricatured ; at which outrage on courtesy and 
 hospitality, the guests, naturally enough, " were much 
 chagrined," says Downes. Nokes retained the duke's 
 sword and belt to his dying day, which fell in the 
 course of the year 1692. He was the original repre- 
 sentative of about forty characters, in plays which 
 have long since disappeared from the stage. Charles 
 II. was the first who recognised, on the occasion of 
 his playing the part of Norfolk, in " Henry VIII.," 
 the merit of Nokes as an actor. 
 
 James Nokes left to his nephew something better 
 than the sword and belt of the Duke of Monmouth, 
 namely, a landed estate at Totteridge, near Barnet, 
 of the value of ^400 a year. Pepys may have 
 kissed that nephew's mother, on the August day of 
 1665, when he fell into company near Rochester with
 
 THE BOY ACTRESSES AND THE YOUNG LADIES 71 
 
 a lady and gentleman riding singly, and differing as 
 to the merits of a copy of verses, which Pepys, by 
 his style of reading aloud, got the husband to con- 
 fess that they were as excellent as the wife had 
 pronounced them to be. "His name is Nokes," 
 writes the diarist, "over against Bow Church. . . . 
 We promised to meet, if ever we come both to Lon- 
 don again, and at parting, I had a fair salute on 
 horseback, in Rochester streets, of the lady." 
 
 Having thus seen the curtain fall upon the once 
 "boy actresses," I proceed to briefly notice the 
 principal ladies in the respective companies of Killi- 
 grew and Davenant, commencing with those of the 
 King's House, or Theatre Royal, under Killigrew's 
 management, chiefly in Drury Lane. The first name 
 of importance in this list is that of Mrs. Hughes, 
 who, on the stage from 1663 to 1676, was more 
 remarkable for her beauty than for her great ability. 
 When the former, in 1668, subdued Prince Rupert, 
 there was more jubilee at the court of Charles II., 
 at Tunbridge Wells, than if .the philosophic prince had 
 fallen upon an invention that should benefit mankind. 
 Rupert, whom the plumed gallants of Whitehall con- 
 sidered as a rude mechanic, left his laboratory, put 
 aside his reserve, and wooed in due form the proudest, 
 perhaps, of the actresses of her day. Only in the 
 May of that year Pepys had saluted her with a kiss, 
 in the greenroom of the King's House. She was 
 then reputed to be the intimate friend and favourite 
 of Sir Charles Sedley; "A mighty pretty woman," 
 says Pepys, "and seems, but is not, modest." The 
 prince enshrined the frail beauty in that home of Sir 
 Nicholas Crispe, at Hammersmith, which was subse-
 
 72 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 quently occupied by Bubb Dodington, the Margra- 
 vine of Anspach, and Queen Caroline of Brunswick. 
 She well-nigh ruined her lover, at whose death there 
 was little left beside a collection of jewels, worth 
 ,20,000, which were disposed of by lottery, in order 
 to pay his debts. Mrs. Hughes was not unlike her 
 own Mrs. Moneylove in "Tom Essence," a very 
 good sort of person till temptation beset her. After 
 his death she squandered much of the estate which 
 Rupert had left to her, chiefly by gambling. Her 
 contemporary, Nell Gwyn, purchased a celebrated 
 pearl necklace belonging to the deceased prince for 
 .4,520, a purchase which must have taken the 
 appearance of an insult, in the eyes of Mrs. Hughes. 
 The daughter of this union, Ruperta, who shared 
 with her mother the modest estate bequeathed by 
 the prince, married General Emanuel Scrope Howe. 
 One of the daughters of this marriage was the 
 beautiful and reckless maid of honour to Caroline, 
 Princess of Wales, whom the treachery of Nanty 
 Lowther sent broken-hearted to the grave, in 1726. 
 Through Ruperta, however, the blood of her par- 
 ents is still continued in the family of Sir Edward 
 Bromley. 
 
 Mrs. Knipp (or Knep) was a different being from 
 Margaret Hughes. She was a pretty creature, with 
 a sweet voice, a mad humour, and an ill-looking, 
 moody, jealous husband, who vexed the soul and 
 bruised the body of his sprightly, sweet-toned and 
 wayward wife. Excellent company she was found by 
 Pepys and his friends, whatever her horse-jockey of 
 a husband may have thought of her, or Mrs. Pepys 
 of the philandering of her own husband with the
 
 THE BOY ACTRESSES AND THE YOUNG LADIES 73 
 
 minx, whom she did not hesitate to pronounce a 
 "wench," and whom Pepys himself speaks of affec- 
 tionately as a "jade" he was always glad to see. 
 Abroad he walks with her in the New Exchange to 
 look for pretty faces ; and of the home of an actress, 
 in 1666, we have a sketch in the record of a visit in 
 November, "To Knipp's lodgings, whom I find not 
 ready to go home with me ; and there stayed reading 
 of Waller's verses, while she finished dressing, her 
 husband being by. Her lodging very mean, and the 
 condition she lives in ; yet makes a show without 
 doors, God bless us ! " 
 
 Mrs. Knipp's characters embraced the rakish fine 
 ladies, the rattling ladies' -maids, one or two tragic 
 parts ; and where singing was required, priestesses, 
 nuns, and milkmaids. As one of the latter, Pepys 
 was enchanted at her appearance, with her hair 
 simply turned up in a knot behind. 
 
 Her intelligence was very great, her simple style 
 of dressing much commended ; and she could deliver 
 a prologue as deftly as she could either sing or 
 dance, and with as much grace as she was wont to 
 throw into manifestations of touching grief or tender- 
 ness. She disappears from the bills in 1678, after 
 a fourteen years' service ; and there is no further 
 record of the life of Mistress Knipp. 
 
 Anne and Rebecca Marshall are names which one 
 can only reluctantly associate with that of Stephen 
 Marshall, the divine, who is said to have been their 
 father. The Long Parliament frequently commanded 
 the eloquent incumbent of Finchingfield, Essex, to 
 preach before them. Cambridge University was as 
 proud of him as a distinguished alumnus, as Hunting-
 
 74 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 denshire was of having him for a son. In affairs of 
 religion he was the oracle of Parliament, and his 
 advice was sought even in political difficulties. He 
 was a mild and conscientious man, of whom Baxter 
 remarked, that "if all the bishops had been of the 
 spirit and temper of Usher, the Presbyterians of 
 the temper of Mr. Marshall, and the independents 
 like Mr. Burroughs, the divisions of the Church 
 would have been easily compromised." Stephen 
 Marshall was a man who, in his practice, " preached 
 his sermons o'er again ; " and Firmin describes him 
 as an "example to the believers in word, in conversa- 
 tion, in charity, in faith, and in purity." He died 
 full of honours and understanding ; and Westminster 
 Abbey afforded him a grave, from which he was 
 ruthlessly ejected at the Restoration. It is hardly 
 possible to believe that such a saint was the father 
 of the two beautiful actresses whom Nell Gwyn 
 taunted with being the erring daughters of a "pray- 
 ing Presbyterian." 
 
 On the other hand, we learn from Sir Peter Leices- 
 ter's " History of Cheshire," that the royalist, Lord 
 Gerard of Bromley, retained this staunch Presby- 
 terian in his house as his chaplain. Further, we 
 are told that this chaplain married a certain illegiti- 
 mate Elizabeth, whose father was a Button of 
 Button, and that of this marriage came Anne and 
 Rebecca. As Sir Peter was himself connected with 
 both the Gerards and Buttons by marriage, he must 
 be held as speaking with some authority in this 
 matter. 
 
 Pepys says of Anne Marshall, that her voice was 
 "not so sweet as lanthe's," meaning Mrs. Betterton's.
 
 THE BOY ACTRESSES AND THE YOUNG LADIES 75 
 
 Rebecca had a beautiful hand, was very imposing on 
 the stage, and even off of it was " mighty fine, pretty, 
 and noble." She had the reputation of facilitating the 
 intrigue which Lady Castlemaine kept up with Hart, 
 the actor, to avenge herself on the king because 
 of his admiration for Mrs. Davies. One of her finest 
 parts was Dorothea, in the " Virgin Martyr ; " and 
 her Queen of Sicily (an "up-hill" part) to Nell 
 Gwyn's Florimel, in Dryden's "Secret Love," was 
 highly appreciated by the playgoing public. 
 
 With the exception of Mrs. Corey, the mimic, and 
 pleasing little Mrs. Boutel, who realised a fortune, 
 with her girlish voice and manner, and her supremely 
 innocent and fascinating ways, justifying the inten- 
 sity of love with which she inspired youthful heroes, 
 the only other actress of the king's company worth 
 mentioning is Nell Gwyn ; but Nell was the crown 
 of them all, winning hearts throughout her jubilant 
 career, beginning in her early girlhood with that of a 
 link-boy, and ending in her womanhood with that of 
 the king. 
 
 Nell Gwyn is claimed by the Herefordshire people. 
 In Hereford city, a mean house in the rear of the 
 Oak Inn is pointed out as the place of her birth. 
 The gossips there little thought that a child so hum- 
 bly born would be the mother of a line of dukes, or 
 that her great-grandson should be the bishop of her 
 native town, and occupy for forty years the episcopal 
 palace in close proximity to the poor cottage in 
 which the archest of hussies first saw the light. 
 
 But the claims of Pipe Lane, Hereford, are dis- 
 puted by Coal Yard, Drury Lane, and also by Ox- 
 ford) where Nell's father, James Gwyn, a "captain,"
 
 76 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 according to some, a fruiterer, according to others, 
 died in prison. The captain, with his wife Helena, 
 somewhile a resident in St. Martin's Lane, had two 
 daughters, Nell and Rose. The latter married a 
 Captain Capels, and, secondly, a Mr. Foster ; little 
 else is known of her, save that her less reputable sis- 
 ter left her a small legacy, and that she survived till 
 the year 1697. Nelly was born early in 1650; and 
 tradition states that she very early ran away from her 
 country home to town, and studied for the stage by 
 going every night to the play. I suspect Coal Yard 
 was her first bower, that thence she issued to cry 
 " fresh herrings ! " and captivate the hearts of sus- 
 ceptible link-boys ; and passed, from being hander 
 of strong waters to the gentlemen who patronised 
 Madame Ross's house, to taking her place in the pit, 
 with her back to the orchestra, and selling oranges 
 and pippins, with pertinent wit gratis, to liberal fops 
 who would buy the first and return the second with 
 interest. As Rochester assures us, there was a 
 "wondering pit" in presence of this smartest and 
 most audacious of orange-girls. It was natural 
 enough that she should attract the notice of the 
 actors, that Lacy should give her instruction, and 
 that from Charles Hart she should take that and all 
 the love he could pay her. The latter two were 
 spoken of in prologues, long after both were dead, as 
 "those darlings of the stage." 
 
 Under the auspices of Charles Hart, Nelly made 
 her first appearance at the (king's) theatre, in a seri- 
 ous part, Cydaria, in the "Indian Emperor." She 
 was then not more than fifteen, though some say 
 seventeen, years of age. For tragedy she was un-
 
 THE BOY ACTRESSES AND THE YOUNG LADIES 7? 
 
 fitted : her stature was low, though her figure was 
 graceful ; and it was not till she assumed comic char- 
 acters, stamped the smallest foot in England on the 
 boards, and laughed with that peculiar laugh that, in 
 the excess of it, her eyes almost disappeared, she 
 fairly carried away the town, and enslaved the hearts 
 of city and of court. She spoke prologues and epi- 
 logues with wonderful effect, danced to perfection, 
 and in her peculiar but not extensive line was, per- 
 haps, unequalled for the natural feeling which she 
 put into the parts most suited to her. She was so 
 fierce of repartee that no one ventured a second time 
 to allude sneeringly to her antecedents. She was 
 coarse, too, when the humour took her ; could curse 
 pretty strongly if the house was not full, and was 
 given, in common with the other ladies of the com- 
 pany, to loll about and talk loudly in the public 
 boxes, when she was not engaged on the stage. 
 She left both stage and boxes for a time, in 1667, to 
 keep mad house at Epsom with the clever Lord Buck- 
 hurst a man who for one youthful vice exhibited a 
 thousand manly virtues. The story, that Lord Buck- 
 hurst separated from Mistress Gwyn for a money 
 consideration and a title, can be disproved by the 
 testimony of a character which all Peru could not 
 have influenced, and of chronology, which sets the 
 story at naught. 
 
 They who would read Buckhurst's true character, 
 will find it in the eloquent and graceful dedication 
 which Prior made of his poems to Buckhurst's son, 
 Lionel. Like the first Sackville, of the line of the 
 Earls of Dorset, he was himself a poet ; and "To all 
 you ladies now on land," although not quite the im-
 
 78 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 prompt u it is said to have been, is an evidence how 
 gracefully he could strike the lyre on the eve of a 
 great battle. In short, Buckhurst, who took Nelly 
 from the stage, and who found Prior in a coffee-shop 
 and added, him to literature, was a "man," brave, 
 truthful, gay, honest, and universally beloved. He 
 was the people's favourite ; and Pope assures us, when 
 Buckhurst had become Earl of Dorset, that he was 
 "the grace of courts, the muses' pride." 
 
 After a year's absence, Mistress Gwyn returned to 
 the stage. In all nature, there was nothing better 
 than she, in certain parts. Pepys never hoped to 
 see anything like her in Florimel, with her changes 
 of sex and costume. She was little, pretty, and 
 witty; danced perfectly, and with such applause, 
 that authors would fain have appropriated the appro- 
 bation bestowed on her " jig " to the play in which it 
 was introduced. A play, without Nell, was no play 
 at all to Mr. Pepys. When, in 1667, she followed 
 Buckhurst to Epsom, and flung up her parts and an 
 honestly earned salary for a poor ;ioo a year, Pepys 
 exclaims, " Poor girl ! I pity her ; but more the loss 
 of her at the King's House." The admiralty clerk's 
 admiration was confined to her merry characters ; he 
 speaks of her Emperor's Daughter, in the "Indian 
 Emperor," as "a great and serious part, which she 
 does most basely." 
 
 Her own party hailed her return ; but she did not 
 light upon a bed of roses. Lady Castlemaine was 
 no longer her patroness rather that and more of 
 Nelly's old lover, Charles Hart, who flouted the ex- 
 favourite of Buckhurst. The ex-favourite, however, 
 bore with equal indifference the scorn of Charles
 
 79 
 
 Hart and the contempt of Charles Sackville ; she 
 saw compensation for both, in the royal homage of 
 Charles Stuart. Meanwhile she continued to enchant 
 the town in comedy, to "spoil" serious parts in Sir 
 Robert Howard's mixed pieces, and yet to act with 
 great success characters in which natural emotion, 
 bordering on insanity, was to be represented. Early 
 in 1668, we find her among the loose companions of 
 King Charles ; " and I am sorry for it," says Pepys, 
 "and can hope for no good to the state, from having 
 a prince so devoted to his pleasure." The writers 'for 
 the stage were of a like opinion. Howard wrote his 
 "Duke of Lerma," as a vehicle of reproof to the 
 king, who sat, a careless auditor, less troubled than 
 Pepys himself, who expected that the play would be 
 interrupted by royal authority. The last of her 
 original characters was that of Almahide, in Dry- 
 den's "Conquest of Granada," the prologue to which 
 she spoke in a straw hat as broad as a cartwheel, and 
 thereby almost killed the king with laughter. In 
 this piece, her old lover, Hart, played Almanzor ; 
 and his position with respect to King Boabdelin 
 (Kynaston) and Almahide (Nelly) corresponds with 
 that in which he stood toward King Charles and 
 the actress. The passages reminding the audience 
 of this complex circumstance threw the house into 
 " convulsions." 
 
 From this time, Ellen Gwyn disappears from the 
 stage. A similar surname appears in the playbills 
 from 1670 to 1682 ; but there is no ground for be- 
 lieving that the " Madame Gwyn " of the later period 
 was the Mrs. Ellen of the earlier, poorer, and merrier 
 times. Nelly's first son, Charles Beauclerc, was born
 
 8o THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 in her house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, in May, 1670; 
 her second, in the following year, at her house in 
 Pall Mall, the garden terrace of which overlooked 
 the then green walk in the park, from which Evelyn 
 saw, with shame, the king talking with the impudent 
 " comedian." This younger son, James, died at Paris, 
 1680. The elder had Otway for a tutor. In his 
 sixth year he was created Earl of Burford, and in 
 his fourteenth was created a duke. His mother had 
 addressed him, in the king's hearing, by an epithet 
 referring to his illegitimacy, on the plea that she did 
 not know by what title to call him. Charles made 
 him an earl. Accident of death raised him to a duke- 
 dom. Harry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans, of whom 
 report made the second husband of Henrietta Maria, 
 had just died. Blind as he had been, he had x played 
 cards to the last some one sitting near him to tell 
 him the points. At an age approaching to ninety 
 years, he had passed away. Charles gave the name 
 of St. Albans, with the title of duke, to Nell Gwyn's 
 eldest son, adding thereto the registrarship of the 
 High Court of Chancery, and the office (rendered 
 hereditary) 1 of Master Falconer of England. The 
 present and tenth Duke of St. Albans is the lineal 
 descendant of Charles Stuart and Ellen Gwyn. 
 
 The king had demurred to a request to settle ^500 
 a year on this lady, and yet within four years she is 
 known to have exacted from him above ^60,000. 
 Subsequently, .6,000, annually, were tossed to her 
 from the Excise, that hardest taxation of the poor, 
 and ^3,000 more were added for the expenses of 
 each son. She blazed publicly at Whitehall, with 
 diamonds outflashing those usually worn, as Evelyn
 
 THE BOY ACTRESSES AND THE YOUNG LADIES 81 
 
 has it, "by the like cattle." At Burford House, 
 Windsor, her gorgeous country residence, she could 
 gaily lose ^1,400 in one night at basset, and pur- 
 chase diamond necklaces the next day, at fabulous 
 prices. Negligently dressed as she was, she always 
 looked fasctnating ; and fascinating as she was, she 
 had a ready fierceness and a bitter sarcasm at hand, 
 when other royal favourites, or sons of favourites, 
 assailed or sneered at her. With the king and his 
 brother she bandied jokes as freely as De Pompadour 
 or Du Barry with Louis XV. By impulse, she 
 could be charitable ; but by neglecting the claims of 
 her own creditors, she could be cruel. Charles 
 alluded to her extravagance when, on his death-bed, 
 he recommended those shameless women, Cleveland 
 and Portsmouth, to his brother's kindness, and hoped 
 he would "not let Nelly starve." An apocryphal 
 story attributes the founding of Chelsea Hospital to 
 Nelly's tenderness for a poor old wounded soldier 
 who had been cheated of his pay. The dedications 
 to her of books by such people as Aphra Behn and 
 Duffett are blasphemous in their expressions, making 
 of her, as they do, a sort of divine essence, and be- 
 coming satirical by their exaggerated and disgusting 
 eulogy. For such a person, the pure and pious 
 Bishop Kenn was once called upon to yield up an 
 apartment in which he lodged, and the peerage had 
 a narrow escape of having her foisted upon it as 
 Countess of Greenwich. This clever actress died in 
 November, 1687, of a fit of apoplexy, by which she 
 had been stricken in the previous March. She was 
 then in her thirty-eighth year. She had been en- 
 dowed like a princess, but she left debts and died
 
 8a THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 just in time to allow James to discharge them out of 
 the public purse. Finally, she was carried to old St. 
 Martin's in the Fields to be buried, and Tennison 
 preached her funeral sermon. When this was subse- 
 quently made the ground of exposing him to the 
 reproof of Queen Mary, she remarked that the good 
 doctor, no doubt, had said nothing but what the facts 
 authorised. 
 
 In the time of Nelly's most brilliant fortunes, the 
 people who laughed at her wit and impudence pub- 
 licly contemned her. In February, 1680, she visited 
 the Duke's Theatre, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, on 
 which occasion a person in the pit called her loudly 
 by a name which, to do her justice, she never repu- 
 diated. The affront, which she herself could laugh 
 at, was taken up by Thomas Herbert, brother of 
 Philip, Earl of Pembroke, who had married the 
 younger sister of another of the king's favourites, 
 Henrietta de Querouaille. The audience took part, 
 some with the assailant, others with the champion 
 of Nelly. Many swords were drawn, the sorrows of 
 the " Orphan " were suspended, there was a hubbub 
 in the house, and more scratches given than blood 
 spilt. That Nelly found a knight in Thomas Herbert 
 only proves that a hot-headed young gentleman may 
 become a very sage as years grow upon him. This 
 Thomas, when Earl of Pembroke, was " first plenipo- 
 tentiary" at the making of the treaty of Ryswick, 
 and chief commissioner in establishing the union of 
 England and Scotland. His excellent taste and lib- 
 erality laid the foundations of the collection of antiques 
 which yet attracts visitors to Wilton. But love for 
 leading playhouse factions did not die out in his fam-
 
 THE BOY ACTRESSES AND THE YOUNG LADIES 83 
 
 ily. Four and forty years after he had drawn sword 
 for the reputation of Nell Gwyn, his third countess, 
 Mary, sister of Viscount Howe, headed the Cuzzoni 
 party at the Opera House against the Faustina fac- 
 tion, led by the Countess of Burlington and Lady 
 Delawar. Whenever Faustina opened her mouth 
 to sing, Lady Pembroke and her friends hissed the 
 singer heartily ; and as soon as Cuzzoni made a similar 
 attempt, Lady Burlington and her followers shrieked 
 her into silence. Lord Pembroke sat by, thinking, 
 perhaps, of the young days when he was the 
 champion of Nell Gwyn, or of Margaret Symcott, if 
 an old tradition be true that such was Nelly's real 
 name. 
 
 Of the ladies who played at the Duke's House, 
 under Davenant, the principal were Mrs. Davenport, 
 Mrs. Davies, Mrs. Gibbs, Mrs. Holden, Mrs. Jen- 
 nings, Mrs. Long, and Mrs. Norris. Chief among 
 these were Mistresses Davenport, Davies, Saunder- 
 son, and Long. Mrs. Davenport is remembered as 
 the Roxalana of Davenant's " Siege of Rhodes," 
 which she played so well that Pepys could not forget 
 her in either of her successors, Mrs. Betterton or 
 Mrs. Norton. She is still better remembered in 
 connection with a story of which she is the heroine, 
 although that character in it has been ascribed to 
 others. 
 
 Aubrey de Vere, the twentieth Earl of Oxford, was 
 the last of his house who held that title, but the one 
 who held it the longest, namely, seventy years, from 
 1632 to 1702. Aubrey de Vere despised the old 
 maxim, "Noblesse oblige." He lived a roystering 
 life, kept a roystering house, and was addicted to
 
 $4 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 hard drinking, rough words, and unseemly brawling 
 and sword-slashing, in his cups. The young earl 
 made love, after the fashion of the day and the man, 
 to Mrs. Davenport ; but he might as well have made 
 love to Diana ; and it was not till he proposed mar- 
 riage that the actress condescended to listen to his 
 suit. The lovers were privately married, and the lady 
 was, in the words of old Downes, "crept the stage." 
 The honeymoon, however, was speedily obscured ; 
 Lord Oxford grew indifferent and brutal. When the 
 lady talked of her rights, he informed her that she 
 was not Countess of Oxford at all. The apparent 
 reverend gentleman who had performed the ceremony 
 of marriage was a trumpeter, who served under this 
 very noble lord in the king's own regiment of cavalry. 
 The forlorn fair one, after threatening suicide, sought 
 out the king, fell at his feet, and demanded justice. 
 The award was made in the shape of an annuity of 
 ^300 a year, with which " Lord Oxford's Miss," as 
 Evelyn calls her, seems to have been satisfied and 
 consoled ; for Pepys, soon after, being at the play, 
 "saw the old Roxalana in the chief box, in a velvet 
 gown, as the fashion is, and very handsome, at which 
 I was glad." 
 
 As for Miss Mary Davies, it is uncertain whether 
 she was the daughter of a Wiltshire blacksmith, or 
 the less legitimate offspring of Thomas Howard, the 
 first Earl of Berkshire, or of the earl's son, not 
 the poet, but the colonel. However this may be, 
 Mary Davies was early on the stage, where she 
 danced well, played moderately ill, announced the 
 next afternoon's performance with grace, and won an 
 infamous distinction at the king's hands, by her inim-
 
 THE BOY ACTRESSES AND THE YOUNG LADIES 85 
 
 itable singing of the old song of " My lodging is on 
 the cold ground." Then there was the public fur- 
 nishing of a house for her, and the presentation of a 
 ring worth ;6oo, and much scandal to good men 
 and honest women. Thereupon Miss Davies grew 
 an "impertinent slut," and my Lady Castlemaine 
 waxed melancholy, and meditated mischief against 
 her royal and fickle lover. The patient queen her- 
 self was moved to anger by the new position of Miss 
 Davies, and when the latter appeared in a play at 
 Whitehall, in which she was about to dance, her 
 Majesty rose, and left the house. But neither the 
 offended dignity of the queen, nor Lady Castlemaine 
 "looking fire," nor the bad practical jokes of Nell 
 Gwyn, could loose the king from the temporary en- 
 chantment to which he surrendered himself. Their 
 daughter was that Mary Tudor who married the second 
 Earl of Derwentwater, whose son, the third earl, was 
 the gallan/ young fellow who lost his head for aid 
 afforded to his cousin, the first Pretender, in 1715. 
 Before his death, a request was made to the Duke of 
 Richmond, son of Charles II. by Mile, de Querouaille, 
 to present a memorial to the lords in order to save the 
 young earl's life. The duke presented the memorial, 
 but he added his earnest hope that their lordships 
 would reject the prayer of it ! In such wise did the 
 illegitimate Stuarts play brother to each other! 
 Through the marriage of the daughter of Lord Der- 
 wentwater with the eighth Lord Petre, the blood of 
 the Stuart and of Moll Davies still runs in their lineal 
 descendant, the present and twelfth lord. 
 
 Happy are the women who have no histories ! 
 Such is the case with Miss Saunderson, better known
 
 86 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 to us as Mrs. Betterton. For about thirty years she 
 played the chief female characters, especially in 
 Shakespeare's plays, with great success. She cre- 
 ated as many new parts as she played years ; but 
 they were in old-world pieces, which have been long 
 forgotten. In the home which she kept with her 
 husband, charity, hospitality, and dignity abided. So 
 unexceptional was Mrs. Betterson's character, that 
 when Crowne's " Calista " was to be played at court 
 in 1674, she was chosen to be instructress to the 
 Lady Mary and the Lady Anne. These princesses 
 derived from Mrs. Betterton's lessons the accomplish- 
 ment for which both were distinguished when queens, 
 of pronouncing speeches from the throne in a distinct 
 and clear voice, with sweetness of intonation, and 
 grace of enunciation. Mrs. Betterton subsequently 
 instructed the Princess Anne in the part of Semandra, 
 and her husband did the like office for the young 
 noblemen who also played in Lee's rattling tragedy 
 of "Mithridates." Two individuals, better qualified 
 by their professional skill and their moral character 
 to instruct the young princesses and courtiers, and to 
 exercise over them a wholesome authority, could 
 not then have been found on or off the stage. 
 After Betterton's death, Queen Anne settled on 
 her old teacher of elocution a pension of ^500 a 
 year. 
 
 Of the remainder of the actresses who first 
 joined Davenant, there is nothing recorded, except 
 their greater or less efficiency. Of Mrs. Holden, 
 Betterton's kinswoman, the only incident that I can 
 recall to mind is, that once, by the accidental mis- 
 pronunciation of a word, when playing in " Romeo
 
 THE BOY ACTRESSES AND THE YOUNG LADIES 87 
 
 and Juliet," and giving it " a vehement action, it put 
 the house into such a laughter, that London Bridge 
 at low water was silence to it ! " Under its echoes 
 let us pass to the "gentlemen of the king's com- 
 pany."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE GENTLEMEN OF THE KING'S COMPANY 
 
 OF the king's company, under Killigrew, Hart, 
 Burt, and Clun have already been noticed as players 
 who commenced their career by acting female parts. 
 Of the other early members of this troupe, the first 
 names of importance are those of Lacy, and little 
 Major Mohun, the low comedian and the high tra- 
 gedian. Of those who precede them alphabetically, 
 but little remains on record. We only know of The- 
 ophilus Bird, that he broke his leg when dancing in 
 Suckling's " Aglaura," probably when the poet 
 changed his tragedy, in which the characters killed 
 each other, into a sort of comedy, in which they all 
 survived. Cartwright, on the other hand, has left a 
 lasting memorial. If you would see how the kind 
 old fellow looked, go down to Dulwich College 
 that grand institution for which actors have done so 
 much and which has done so little . for actors and 
 gaze on his portrait there. It is the picture of a 
 man who bequeathed his books, pictures, and fur- 
 niture, to the college which Alleyn, another actor, 
 had founded. In early life, Cartwright had been a 
 bookseller, at the corner of Turnstile, Holborn ; and 
 in his second vocation his great character was Falstaff. 
 
 Lacy was a great Falstaff, too ; and his portrait, a 
 88
 
 THE GENTLEMEN OF THE KING'S COMPANY 89 
 
 triple one painted by Wright and etched by Hopkins, 
 one of the Princess Elizabeth's pages, is familiarly 
 known to Hampton Court visitors. Lacy had been 
 first a dancing-master, then a lieutenant in the army, 
 before he tried the stage. In his day he had no 
 equal ; and his admirers denied that the day to come 
 would ever see his equal. Lacy was handsome, both 
 in shape and feature, and is to be remembered as the 
 original performer of Teague, in the " Committee ; " 
 a play of Howard's, subsequently cut down to the 
 farce of "Killing, no Murder." And eight years 
 later (1671), taught by Buckingham, and mimicking 
 Dryden, he startled the town with that immortal 
 Bayes, in the " Rehearsal ; " a part so full of happy 
 opportunities that it was coveted or essayed for many 
 years, not only by every great actor, whatever his 
 line, but by many an actress, too ; and, last of all, by 
 William Farren, in 1819. 
 
 There was nothing within the bounds of comedy 
 that Lacy could not act well. Evelyn styles him 
 " Roscius." Frenchman, or Scot, or Irishman, fine 
 gentleman or fool, rogue or honest simpleton, Tar- 
 tuffe or Drench, old man or loquacious woman, in 
 all, Lacy was the delight of the town for about a 
 score of years. The king ejected the best players 
 from parts, considered almost as their property, and 
 assigned them to Lacy. His wardrobe was a spec- 
 tacle of itself, and gentlemen of leisure and curiosity 
 went to see it. He took a positive enjoyment in 
 parts which enabled him to rail at the rascalities of 
 courtiers. Sometimes this Aristophanic license went 
 too far. In Howard's " Silent Woman," the sar- 
 casms reached the king, and moved his Majesty to
 
 90 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 wrath, and to locking up Lacy himself in the Porter's 
 Lodge. After a few days' detention he was released ; 
 whereupon Howard, meeting him behind the scenes, 
 congratulated him. Lacy, still ill in temper, abused 
 the poet for the nonsense he had put into the part of 
 Captain Otter, which was the cause of all the mis- 
 chief. Lacy further told Howard, he was "more a 
 fool than a poet." Thereat, the honourable Edward, 
 raising his glove, smote Lacy smartly with it over 
 the face. Jack Lacy retaliated, by lifting his cane 
 and letting it descend quite as smartly on the pate of 
 a man who was cousin to an earl. Ordinary men 
 marvelled that the honourable Edward did not run 
 Jack through the body. On the contrary, without 
 laying hand to hilt, Howard hastened to the king, 
 lodged his complaint, and the house was thereupon 
 ordered to be closed. Thus, many starved for the 
 indiscretion of one; but the gentry rejoiced at the 
 silencing of the company, as those clever fellows 
 and their fair mates were growing, as that gentry 
 thought, " too insolent." 
 
 Lacy, soon after, was said to be dying, and al- 
 together so ill-disposed as to have refused ghostly 
 advice at the hands of " a bishop, an old acquaintance 
 of his," says PepySj " who went to see him." Who 
 could this bishop have been, who was the old ac- 
 quaintance of the ex-dancing-master and lieutenant ? 
 Herbert Croft, or Seth Ward? or Isaac Barrow, 
 of Sodor-and-Man, whose father, the mercer, had 
 lived near the father of Betterton ? But, whoever 
 he may have been, the king's favour restored the 
 actor to health ; and he remained Charles's favourite 
 comedian till his death, in 1 68 1 .
 
 THE GENTLEMEN OF THE KING'S COMPANY 91 
 
 When Lacy's posthumous comedy, " Sir Hercules 
 Buffoon," was produced in 1684, the man with the 
 longest and crookedest nose, and the most wayward 
 wit in England, Tom Durfey, furnished the pro- 
 logue. In that piece he designated Lacy as the 
 standard of true comedy. If the play does not take, 
 said Lively Tom, 
 
 " all that we can say on't 
 Is, we've his fiddle, but not his hands to play on't ! " 
 
 Genest, a critic not very hard to please, says 
 that Lacy's friends should have "buried his fiddle 
 with him." 
 
 Michael Mohun is the pleasantest and, perhaps, 
 the greatest name on the roll of the king's company. 
 When the players offended the king, Mohun was 
 the peacemaker. 
 
 One cannot look on Mohun's portrait, at Knowle, 
 without a certain mingling of pleasure and respect. 
 That long-haired young fellow wears so frank an 
 aspect, and the hand rests on the sword so delicately 
 yet so firmly ! He is the very man who might " rage 
 like Cethegus, or like Cassius die." Lee could never 
 willingly write a play without a part for Mohun, who, 
 with Hart, was accounted among the good actors 
 that procured profitable " third days " for authors. 
 No Maximin could defy the gods as he did ; and 
 there has been no franker Clytus since the day he 
 originally represented the character in "Alexander 
 the Great." In some parts he contested the palm 
 with Betterton, whose versatility he rivalled, creating 
 one year Abdelmelich, in another Dapperwit, in a 
 third Pinchwife, and then a succession of classical
 
 9* THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 heroes and modern rakes or simpletons. Such an 
 actor had many imitators, but, in his peculiar line, 
 few could rival a man who was said to speak as 
 Shakespeare wrote, and whom nature had formed 
 for a nation's delight. The author of the epilogue to 
 "Love in the Dark" (that bustling piece of Sir 
 Francis Fane's, from the "Scrutinio" in which, 
 played by Lacy, Mrs. Centlivre derived her Marplot) 
 illustrates the success of Mohun's imitators by an 
 allusion to the gout from which he suffered : 
 
 " Those blades indeed, but cripples in their art, 
 Mimic his foot, but not his speaking part." 
 
 Of his modesty, I know no better trait than what 
 passed when Nat. Lee had read to him a part which 
 Mohun was to fill in one of Lee's tragedies. The 
 major put aside the manuscript, in a sort of despair 
 " Unless I could play the character as beautifully as 
 you read it," said he, " it were vain to try it at all ! " 
 
 Such is the brief record of a great actor, one who 
 before our civil jars was a young player, during the 
 civil wars was a good soldier, and in the last years of 
 Charles II. was an old and a great actor still. Of the 
 other original members of the Theatre Royal, there 
 is not much to be said. Wintershell, who died in 
 1679, merits, however, a word. He was distin- 
 guished, whether wearing the sock or the buskin, 
 majestic in loftily toned kings, and absurd in sillily 
 amorous knights. Downes has praised him as su- 
 perior to Nokes, in at least one part, and his Slender 
 has won eulogy from so stern a critic as Dennis. 
 
 Among the men who subsequently joined the 
 Theatre Royal, there were some good actors, and a
 
 THE GENTLEMEN OF THE KING'S COMPANY 93 
 
 few great rogues. Of these, the best actor and the 
 greatest rogue was Cardell Goodman, or Scum 
 Goodman, as he was designated by his enemies. His 
 career on the stage lasted from 1677, as Polyperchon, 
 in Lee's " Rival Queens," to 1688. His most popular 
 parts were Julius Caesar and Alexander. He came 
 to the theatre hot from a fray at Cambridge Univer- 
 sity, whence he had been expelled for cutting and 
 slashing the portrait of that exemplary chancellor, 
 the Duke of Monmouth. 
 
 This rogue's salary must have been small, for he 
 and Griffin shared the same bed in their modest 
 lodging, and having but one shirt between them, wore 
 it each in his turn. The only dissension which ever 
 occurred between them was caused by Goodman, who, 
 having to pay a visit to a lady, clapped on the shirt 
 when it was clean, and Griffin's day for wearing it ! 
 
 For restricted means, however, every gentleman of 
 of spirit, in those days, had a resource, if he chose to 
 avail himself of it. The resource was the road, and 
 Cardell Goodman took to it with alacrity. But he 
 came to grief, and found himself with gyves on in 
 Newgate ; yet he escaped the cart, the rope, and 
 Tyburn. King James gave " his Majesty's servant " 
 his life, and Cardell returned to the stage a hero. 
 
 A middle-aged duchess, fond of heroes, adopted 
 him as a lover, and Cardell Goodman had fine quar- 
 ters, rich feeding, and a dainty wardrobe, all at the 
 cost of his mistress, the ex-favourite of a king, Bar- 
 bara, the Duchess of Cleveland. Scum Goodman 
 was proud of his splendid degradation, and paid such 
 homage to "my duchess," as the impudent fellow 
 called her, that when he expected her presence in the
 
 94 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 theatre, he would not go on the stage, though king 
 and queen were kept waiting, till he heard that " his 
 duchess" was in the house. For her, he played the 
 mad scene in Alexander with double vigour, and 
 cared for no other applause so long as her Grace's 
 fan signalled approbation. 
 
 Scum might have had a rare, if a rascally, life, had 
 he been discreet ; but he was fool as well as knave. 
 A couple of the duchess's children, in the duchess's 
 house, annoyed him, and Scum suborned a villainous 
 Italian quack to dispose of them by poison. A dis- 
 covery, before the attempt was actually made, brought 
 Scum to trial for a misdemeanour. He had the luck 
 of his own father, the devil, that he was not tried 
 for murder. As it was, a heavy fine crippled him for 
 life. He seems, however, to have hung about the 
 stage after he withdrew from it as an actor. He 
 looked in at rehearsals, and seeing a likely lad, named 
 Gibber, going through the little part of the Chaplain, 
 in the "Orphan," one spring morning of [690, Scum 
 loudly wished he might be what he very much 
 deserved to be, if the young fellow did not turn out 
 a good actor. Colley was so delighted with the 
 earnest criticism, that the tears flowed to his eyes. 
 At least, he says so. 
 
 King James having saved Cardell's neck, Goodman, 
 out of pure gratitude, perhaps, became a Tory, and 
 something more, when William sat in the seat of his 
 father-in-law. After Queen Mary's death, Scum was 
 in the Fen wick and Char nock plot to kill the king. 
 When the plot was discovered, Scum was ready to 
 peach. As Fenwick's life was thought, by his 
 friends, to ; be safe if Goodman could be bought off
 
 THE GENTLEMEN OF THE KING'S COMPANY 95 
 
 and got out of the way, the rogue was looked for, at 
 the " Fleece," in Covent Garden, famous for homi- 
 cides, and at the robbers' and the revellers' den, the 
 " Dog," in Drury Lane. Fenwick's agent, O'Bryan, 
 erst soldier and highwayman, now a Jacobite agent, 
 found Scum at the "Dog," and would then and there 
 have cut his throat, had not Scum consented to the 
 pleasant alternative of accepting ^500 a year, and a 
 residence abroad. This to a man who was the first 
 forger of bank-notes ! Scum suddenly disappeared, 
 and Lord Manchester, our ambassador in Paris, in- 
 quired after him in vain. It was impossible to say 
 whether the rogue died by an avenging hand, or 
 starvation. 
 
 We are better acquainted with the fate of the last 
 of Scum's fair favourites, the pretty Mrs. Price of 
 Drury Lane. This Ariadne was not disconsolate for 
 her Theseus. She married " Charles, Lord Ban- 
 bury," who was not Lord Banbury, for the House of 
 Peers denied his claim to the title ; and he was not 
 Mrs. Price's husband, as he was already married to a 
 living lady, Mrs. Lester. Of this confusion in social 
 arrangements the world made small account, although 
 the law did pronounce in favour of Mrs. Lester, 
 without troubling itself to punish "my lord." The 
 judges pronounced for the latter lady, solely on the 
 ground that she had had children, and the actress 
 none. 
 
 Joseph Haines ! "Joe," with his familiars ; " Count 
 Haines," with those who affected great respect, was 
 a rogue in his way a merry rogue, a ready wit, and 
 an admirable low comedian, from 1672 to 1701. We 
 first hear of him as a quick-witted lad at a school in
 
 96 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, whence he was sent, through 
 the liberality of some gentlemen who had remarked 
 his talents, to Queen's College, Oxford. There 
 Haines met with Williamson, the Sir Joseph of after 
 days, distinguished alike for his scholarship, his abili- 
 ties as a statesman, the important offices he held, and 
 the liberality with which he dispensed the fortune 
 which he honourably acquired. 
 
 Williamson chose Haines for a friend, and made 
 him his Latin secretary when Williamson was ap- 
 appointed secretary of state. If Haines could have 
 kept official and state secrets, his own fortune would 
 now have been founded ; but Joe gossiped in joyous 
 companies, and in taverns revealed the mysteries of 
 diplomacy. Williamson parted with his indiscreet 
 "servant," but sent him to recommence fortune- 
 making at Cambridge. Here, again, his waywardness 
 ruined him for a professor. A strolling company at 
 Stourbridge Fair seduced him from the groves of 
 Academus, and in a short time this foolish and clever 
 fellow, light of head, of heart, and of principle, was 
 the delight of the Drury Lane audiences, and the 
 favoured guest in the noblest society where mirth, 
 humour, and dashing impudence were welcome. 1 
 
 In 1673, his Sparkish, in the "Country Wife," 
 his original character, was accepted as the type of 
 the airy gentleman of the day. His acting on, and 
 his jokes off, the stage were the themes in all coteries 
 and coffee-houses. He was a great practical jester, 
 and once engaged a simple-minded clergyman as 
 "Chaplain to the Theatre Royal," and sent him 
 
 1 Other accounts say that he commenced his theatrical life early, 
 at the " Nursery."
 
 THE GENTLEMEN OF THE KING'S COMPANY 97 
 
 behind the scenes, ringing a bell, and calling the 
 players to prayers ! When Romanism was looking 
 up, under James II., Haines had the impudence to 
 announce to the convert Sunderland unworthy son 
 of Waller's Sacharissa his adoption of the king's 
 religion, being moved thereto by the Virgin, who had 
 appeared to him in a dream, saying, " Joe, arise ! " 
 This was too much even for Sunderland, who drily 
 observed that " she would have said ' Joseph,' if only 
 out of respect for her husband ! " 
 
 The rogue showed the value of a "profession," 
 which gave rise to many pamphlets as Dryden's, 
 by subsequently recanting not in the church, but 
 on the stage; he the while covered with a sheet, 
 holding a taper, and delivering some stupid rhymes 
 to the very dullest of which he had the art of 
 giving wonderful expression by his accent, emphasis, 
 modulation, and felicity of application. The audience 
 that could bear this recantation-prologue could easily 
 pardon the speaker, who would have caused even 
 greater errors to have been pardoned, were it only 
 for his wonderful impersonation of Captain Bluff 
 (1693) in Congreve's "Old Bachelor." The self-com- 
 placent way in which he used to utter " Hannibal 
 was a very pretty fellow in his day," was univer- 
 sally imitated, and has made the phrase itself pro- 
 verbial. His Roger, in " Esop," was another of his 
 successes, the bright roll of which was crowned by 
 his lively, impudent, irresistible Tom Errand, in Far- 
 quhar's " Constant Couple," that most triumphant 
 comedy of a whole century. 
 
 The great fault of Haines lay in the liberties which 
 he took with the business of the stage. He cared
 
 98 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 less to identify himself with the characters he repre- 
 sented than, through them, to keep up a communica- 
 tion with the spectators. When Hart, then manager, 
 cast Joe for the simple part of a Senator, in " Cati- 
 line," in which Hart played the hero, Joe, in disgust 
 at his r61e, spoiled Hart's best point, by sitting behind 
 him, absurdly attired, with pot and pipe in hand, and 
 making grimaces at the grave actor of Catiline ; which 
 kept the house in a roar of laughter. Hart could not 
 be provoked to forget his position, and depart from his 
 character; but as soon as he made his exit, he sent 
 Joe his dismissal. 
 
 Joe Haines, then, alternated between the stage and 
 the houses of his patrons. " Vivitur ingenio," the 
 stage-motto, was also his own, and he seems to have 
 added to his means by acting the jester's part in 
 noble circles. He was, however, no mere "fool." 
 Scholars might respect a " classic " like Haines, and 
 travelling lords gladly hire as a companion a witty 
 fellow, who knew two or three living languages as 
 familiarly as he did his own. With an English peer 
 he once visited Paris, where Joe is said to have got 
 imprisoned for debt, incurred in the character, as- 
 sumed by him, of an English lord. After his release 
 he returned to England, self-invested with the dignity 
 of "count," a title not respected by a couple of bail- 
 iffs, who arrested Joseph, on Holborn Hill, for a little 
 matter of 20. 
 
 " Here comes the carriage of my cousin, the Bishop 
 of Ely," said the unblushing knave ; " let me speak 
 to him ; I am sure he will satisfy you in this matter." 
 
 Consent was given, and Haines, putting his head 
 in at ttfie carriage door, hastily informed the good
 
 99 
 
 Simon Patrick that "here were two Romanists, in- 
 clined to become Protestants, but with yet some 
 scruples of conscience." 
 
 " My friends," said the eager prelate to them, " if 
 you will presently come to my house, I will satisfy 
 you in this matter ! " The scrupulous gentlemen 
 were well content ; but when an explanation ensued, 
 the vexed bishop paid the money out of very shame, 
 and Joe and the bailiffs spread the story. They who 
 remembered how Haines played Lord Plausible, in 
 the " Plain Dealer," were not at all surprised at his 
 deceiving a bishop and a brace of bailiffs. 
 
 Sometimes his wit was of a nicer quality. When 
 Jeremy Collier's book against the stage was occupy- 
 ing the public mind, a critic expressed his surprise, 
 seeing that the stage was a mender of morals. " True," 
 answered Joe, "but Collier is a mender of morals, 
 too ; and two of a trade, you know, never agree ! " 
 
 Haines was the best comic actor, in his peculiar 
 line of comedy, during nearly thirty years that he 
 was one of "their Majesties' servants." He died at 
 his house in Hart Street, Covent Garden, then a 
 fashionable locality, on the 4th of April, 1701, and 
 was buried in the gloomy churchyard of the parish, 
 which has nothing to render it bright but the memory 
 of the poets, artists, and actors whose bodies are there 
 buried in peace. 
 
 Let us now consider the men in Davenant's, or the 
 duke's company, who acted occasionally in Dorset 
 Gardens, but mostly in Portugal Row, Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields. Of these, the greatest actor was good 
 Thomas Betterton and his merits claim a chapter 
 to himself. / 
 
 H
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON 
 
 THE diaries, biographies, journals, and traditions 
 of the time, will enable us, with some little aid from 
 the imagination, not only to see the actor, but the 
 social aspects amid which he moved. By aid of these, 
 I find that, on a December night, 1661, there is a 
 crowded house at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. 
 The play is " Hamlet," with young Mr. Betterton, 
 who has been two years on the stage, in the part of 
 the Dane. The Ophelia is the real object of the 
 young fellow's love, charming Mistress Saunderson. 
 Old ladies and gentlemen, repairing in capacious 
 coaches to this representation, remind one another 
 of the lumbering and crushing of carriages about the 
 old playhouse in the Blackfriars, causing noisy tu- 
 mults which drew indignant appeals from the Puritan 
 housekeepers, whose privacy was sadly disturbed. 
 But what was the tumult there to the scene on the 
 south side of the " Fields," when " Hamlet," with 
 Betterton, as now, was offered to the public ! The 
 Jehus contend for place with the eagerness of ancient 
 Britons in a battle of chariots. And see, the mob 
 about the pit doors have just caught a bailiff attempt- 
 ing to arrest an honest playgoer. They fasten the 
 official up in a tub, and roll the trembling wretch all 
 
 100
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON 101 
 
 "round the square." They finish by hurling him 
 against a carriage, which sweeps from a neighbouring 
 street at full gallop. Down come the horses over 
 the barrelled bailiff, with sounds of hideous ruin ; and 
 the young lady lying back in the coach is screaming 
 like mad. This lady is the dishonest daughter of 
 brave, honest, and luckless Viscount Grandison. As 
 yet, she is only Mrs. Palmer ; next year she will be 
 Countess of Castlemaine. 
 
 At length the audience are all safely housed and 
 eager. Indifferent enough, however, they are, during 
 the opening scenes. The fine gentlemen laugh loudly 
 and comb their periwigs in the " best rooms." The 
 fops stand erect in the boxes to show how folly looks 
 in clean linen ; and the orange nymphs, with their 
 costly entertainment of fruit from Seville, giggle and 
 chatter, as they stand on the benches below, with 
 young and old admirers, proud of being recognised 
 in the boxes. 
 
 The whole court of Denmark is before them ; but 
 not till the words, " 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, 
 good mother," fall from the lips of Betterton, is the 
 general ear charmed, or the general tongue arrested. 
 Then, indeed, the vainest fops and pertest orange- 
 girls look round and listen too. The voice is so low, 
 and sad, and sweet ; the modulation so tender, the 
 dignity so natural, the grace so consummate, that all 
 yield themselves silently to the delicious enchant- 
 ment. "It's beyond imagination," whispers Mr. 
 Pepys to his neighbour, who only answers with a 
 long and low drawn " Hush ! " 
 
 I can never look on Kneller's masterly portrait of 
 this great player, without envying those who had the
 
 102 THEIR MAJESTIES* SERVANTS 
 
 good fortune to see the original, especially in Hamlet. 
 How grand the head, how lofty the brow, what elo- 
 quence and fire in the eyes, how firm the mouth, how 
 manly the sum of all ! How is the whole audience 
 subdued almost to tears, at the mingled love and awe 
 which he displays in presence of the spirit of his 
 father ! Some idea of Betterton's acting in this scene 
 may be derived from Gibber's description of it, and 
 from that I come to the conclusion that Betterton 
 fulfilled all that Overbury laid down with regard to 
 what best graced an actor. " Whatsoever is com- 
 mendable to the grave orator, is most exquisitely 
 perfect in him ; for by a full and significant action 
 of body he charms our attention. Sit in a full thea- 
 tre, and you will think you see so many lines drawn 
 from the circumference of so many ears, while the 
 actor is the centre." This was especially the case 
 with Betterton ; and now, as Hamlet's first soliloquy 
 closes, and the charmed but silence audience "feel 
 music's pulse in all their arteries," Mr. Pepys almost 
 too loudly exclaims in his ecstasy, "It's the best 
 acted part ever done by man.'V^And the audience 
 think so, too ; there is a hurricane of applause ; after 
 which the fine gentlemen renew their prattle with the 
 fine ladies, and the orange-girls beset the Sir Fop- 
 lings, and this universal trifling is felt as a relief 
 after the general emotion. 
 
 Meanwhile, a critic objects that young Mr. Better- 
 ton is not "original," and intimates that his Hamlet 
 is played by tradition come down through Davenant, 
 who had seen the character acted by Taylor, and had 
 taught the boy to enact the prince after the fashion 
 set by the man who was said to have been instructed
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON 103 
 
 by Shakespeare himself; amid which Mr. Pepys re- 
 marks, " I only know that Mr. Betterton is the best 
 actor in the world." 
 
 As Sir Thomas Overbury remarked of a great 
 player, his voice was never lower than the prompter's 
 nor higher than the foil and target. But let us be 
 silent, here comes the gentle Ophelia. The audience 
 generally took an interest in this lady and the royal 
 Dane, for there was not one in the house who was 
 ignorant of the love-passages there had been between 
 them, or of the coming marriage by which they were 
 to receive additional warrant. Mistress Saunderson 
 was a lady worthy of all the homage here implied. 
 There was mind in her acting ; and she not only 
 possessed personal beauty, but also the richer beauty 
 of a virtuous life. They were a well-matched couple 
 on and off the stage ; and their mutual affection was 
 based on a mutual respect and esteem. People 
 thought of them together, as inseparable, and young 
 ladies wondered how Mr. Betterton could play Mer- 
 cutio, and leave Mistress Saunderson as Juliet, to be 
 adored by the not ineffective Mr. Harris as Romeo ! 
 The whole house, as long as the incomparable pair 
 were on the stage, were in a dream of delight. 
 Their grace, perfection, good looks, the love they 
 had so cunningly simulated, and that which they "were 
 known to mutually entertain, formed the theme of all 
 tongues. In its discussion, the retiring audience 
 forgot the disinterring of the regicides, and the 
 number of men killed the other day on Tower Hill, 
 servants of the French and Spanish ambassadors, 
 in a bloody struggle for precedency, which was 
 ultimately won by the Don !
 
 104 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Fifty years after these early triumphs, an aged 
 couple resided in one of the best houses in Russell 
 Street, Covent Garden, the walls of which were 
 covered with pictures, prints, and drawings, selected 
 with taste and judgment. They were still a hand- 
 some pair. The venerable lady, indeed, looks pale 
 and somewhat saddened. The gleam of April sun- 
 shine which penetrates the apartment cannot win her 
 from the fire. She is Mrs. Betterton, and ever and 
 anon she looks with a sort of proud sorrow on 
 her aged husband. His fortune, nobly earned, has 
 been diminished by "speculation," but the means 
 whereby he achieved it are his still, and Thomas 
 Betterton, in the latter years of Queen Anne, is the 
 chief glory of the stage, even as he was in the first 
 year of King Charles. The lofty column, however, 
 is a little shaken. It is not a ruin, but is beautiful 
 in its decay. Yet that it should decay at all is a 
 source of so much tender anxiety to the actor's wife 
 that her senses suffer disturbance, and there may be 
 seen in her features something of the distraught 
 Ophelia of half a century ago. 
 
 It is the I3th of April, 1710, his benefit night; 
 and the tears are in the lady's eyes, and a painful 
 sort of smile on her trembling lips, for Betterton 
 kisses her as he goes forth that afternoon to take 
 leave, as it proved, of the stage for ever. He is in 
 such pain from gout that he can scarcely walk to his 
 carriage, and how is he to enact the noble and fiery 
 Melantius in that ill-named drama of horror, " The 
 Maid's Tragedy ? " Hoping for the best, the old 
 player is conveyed to the theatre, built by Sir John 
 Vanbrugh, in the Haymarket, the site of which is
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON 105 
 
 now occupied by the " Opera-house." Through the 
 stage door he is carried in loving arms to his dress- 
 ing-room. At the end of an hour Wilks is there, 
 and Pinkethman, and Mrs. Barry, all dressed for their 
 parts, and agreeably disappointed to find the Melan- 
 tius of the night robed, armoured, and besworded, 
 with one foot in a buskin and the other in a slipper. 
 To enable him to even wear the latter, he had first 
 thrust his inflamed foot into water ; but stout as he 
 seemed, trying his strength to and fro in the room, 
 the hand of Death was at that moment descending 
 on the grandest of English actors. 
 
 The house rose to receive him who had delighted 
 themselves, their sires, and their grandsires. The 
 audience were packed "like Norfolk biffins." The 
 edifice itself was only five years old, and when it was 
 a-building, people laughed at the folly which reared 
 a new theatre in the country, instead of in London; 
 for in 1705 all beyond the rural Haymarket was 
 open field, straight away westward and northward. 
 That such a house could ever be filled was set down 
 as an impossibility ; but the achievement was ac- 
 complished on this eventful benefit night, when the 
 popular favourite was about to utter his last words, 
 and to belong thenceforward only to the history of 
 the stage he had adorned. 
 
 There was a shout which shook him, as Lysippus 
 uttered the words " Noble Melantius," which heralded 
 his coming. Every word which could be applied to 
 himself was marked by a storm 'of applause, and when 
 Melantius said of Amintor : 
 
 " His youth did promise much, and his ripe years 
 Will see it all performed,"
 
 106 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 a murmuring comment ran round the house, that this 
 had been effected by Betterton himself. Again, when 
 he bid Amintor " hear thy friend, who has more years 
 than thou," there were probably few who did not 
 wish that Betterton was as young as Wilks : but 
 when he subsequently thundered forth the famous 
 passage, " My heart will never fail me," there was 
 a very tempest of excitement, which was carried to 
 its utmost height, in thundering peal on peal of 
 unbridled approbation, as the great Rhodian gazed 
 full on the house, exclaiming : 
 
 " My heart 
 
 And limbs are still the same : my will as great 
 To do you service ! " 
 
 No one doubted more than a fractional part of this 
 assertion, and Betterton, acting to the end under a 
 continued fire of " bravoes ! " may have thrown more 
 than the original meaning into the phrase : 
 
 " That little word was worth all the sounds 
 That ever I shall hear again ! " 
 
 Few were the words he was destined ever to hear 
 again ; and the subsequent prophecy of his own cer- 
 tain and proximate death, on which the curtain slowly 
 descended, was fulfilled eight and forty hours after 
 they were uttered. 
 
 Such was the close of a career which had com- 
 menced fifty-one years before ! Few other actors 
 of eminence have kept the stage, with the public 
 favour, for so extended a period, with the exception 
 of Cave Underbill, Quin, Macklin, King, and in 
 later times, Bartley and Cooper, most of whom at
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON 107 
 
 least accomplished their half-century. The record 
 of that career affords many a lesson and valuable 
 suggestion to young actors, but I have to say a word 
 previously of the Bettertons, before the brothers 
 of that name, Thomas and the less known William, 
 assumed the sock and buskin. 
 
 Tothill Street, Westminster, is not at present a 
 fine or fragrant locality. It has a crapulous look 
 and a villainous smell, and petty traders now huddle 
 together where nobles once were largely housed. 
 Thomas Betterton was born here, about the year 
 1634-35. The street was then in its early decline, 
 or one of King Charles's cooks could hardly have had 
 a home in it. Nevertheless, there still clung to it a 
 considerable share of dignity. Even at that time 
 there was a Tothill Fields House of Correction, 
 whither vagabonds were sent who used to earn scraps 
 by scraping trenchers in the tents pitched in Petty 
 France. All else in the immediate neighbourhood 
 retained an air of pristine and very ancient nobility. 
 I therefore take the father of Betterton, cook to 
 King Charles, to have been a very good gentleman, 
 in his way. He was certainly the sire of one, and 
 the circumstance of the apprenticeship of young 
 Thomas to a bookseller was no evidence to the con- 
 trary. In those days, it was the custom for greater 
 men than the chefs in the king's kitchen, namely, the 
 bishops in the king's Church, to apprentice their 
 younger sons, at least, to trade, or to bequeath 
 sums for that especial purpose. The last instance I 
 can remember of this traditionary custom presents 
 itself in the person, not indeed of a son of a bishop, 
 but the grandson of an archbishop, namely, of John
 
 toS THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Sharp, Archbishop of York from 1691 to 1714. He 
 had influence enough with Queen Anne to prevent 
 Swift from obtaining a bishopric. His son was Arch- 
 deacon of Northumberland, and of this archdeacon's 
 sons one was prebendary of Durham, while the other, 
 the celebrated Granville Sharp, the "friend of the 
 Negro," was apprenticed to a linen-draper, on Tower 
 Hill. The early connection of Betterton, therefore, 
 with Rhodes, the Charing Cross bookseller, is not 
 to be accepted as a proof that his sire was not in a 
 " respectable " position in society. That sire had had 
 for his neighbour, only half a dozen years before 
 Thomas was born, the well-known Sir Henry Spel- 
 man, who had since removed to more cheerful quar- 
 ters in Barbican. A very few years previously, Sir 
 George Carew resided here, in Caron House, and his 
 manuscripts are not very far from the spot even now. 
 They refer to his experiences as lord deputy in Ire- 
 land, and are deposited in the library at Lambeth 
 Palace. These great men were neighbours of the 
 elder Betterton, and they had succeeded to men not 
 less remarkable. One of the latter was Arthur, Lord 
 Grey, of Wilton, the friend of Spenser, and the Talus 
 of that poet's " Iron Flail." The Greys, indeed, had 
 long kept house in Tothill Street, as had also the 
 Lord Dacre of the South. When Betterton was 
 born here, the locality was still full of the story of 
 Thomas, Lord Dacre, who went thence to be hanged 
 at Tyburn, in 1541. He had headed a sort of 
 Chevy Chase expedition into the private park of Sir 
 Nicholas Pelham, in Sussex. In the fray which 
 ensued, a keeper was killed, of which deed my lord 
 took all the responsibility, and, very much to his
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON 109 
 
 surprise, was hanged in consequence. The mansion 
 built by his son, the last lord, had not lost its 
 first freshness when the Bettertons resided here, 
 and its name, Stourton House, yet survives in the 
 corrupted form of Strutton Ground. 
 
 Thus, the Bettertons undoubtedly resided in a 
 "fashionable" locality, and we may fairly conclude 
 that their title to " respectability " has been so far 
 established. That the street long continued to enjoy 
 a certain dignity is apparent from the fact that, in 
 1664, when Betterton was rousing the town by his 
 acting, as Bosola, in Webster's " Duchess of Malfy," 
 Sir Henry Herbert established his office of master 
 of the revels in Tothill Street. It was not till the 
 next century that the decline of this street set in. 
 Southerne, the dramatist, resided and died there, but 
 it was in rooms over an oilman's shop ; and Edmund 
 Burke lived modestly at the east end, before those 
 mysterious thousands were amassed by means of 
 which he was at length enabled to establish himself 
 as a country gentleman. 
 
 Gait, and the other biographers of Betterton, com- 
 plain of the paucity of materials for the life of so 
 great an actor. Therein is his life told ; or rather 
 Pepys tells it more correctly in an entry for his diary 
 for October, 1662, in which he says: "Betterton is 
 a very sober, serious man, and studious, and humble, 
 following of his studies ; and is rich already with 
 what he gets and saves." There is the great and 
 modest artist's whole life, earnestness, labour, lack 
 of presumption, and the recompense. At the two 
 ends of his career, two competent judges pronounced 
 him to be the best actor they had ever seen. The
 
 no THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 two men were Pepys, who was born in the reign of 
 Charles I., and Pope, who died in the reign of 
 George II. This testimony refers to above a cen- 
 tury, during which time the stage knew no such 
 player as he. Pope, indeed, notices that old critics 
 used to place Hart on an equality with him ; this 
 is, probably, an error for Harris, who had a party 
 at court among the gay people there who were op- 
 pressed by the majesty of Betterton. Pepys alludes 
 to this partisanship in 1663. " This fellow " (Harris), 
 he remarks, "grew very proud of late, the king and 
 everybody else crying him up so high, and that 
 above Betterton, he being a more aery man, as he is, 
 indeed." 
 
 From the days of Betterton's bright youth to that 
 of his old age, the sober seriousness of the "artist," 
 for which Pepys vouches, never left him. With the 
 dress he assumed, for the night, the nature of the 
 man be it Hamlet or Thersites, Valentine or Sir 
 John Brute of whom he was to be the representa- 
 tive. In the " greenroom," as on the stage, he was, 
 for the time being, subdued or raised to the quality 
 of him whose likeness he had put on. In presence 
 of the audience, he was never tempted by applause 
 to forget his part, or himself. Once only, Pepys 
 registers, with surprise, an incident which took place 
 at the representation of " Mustapha," in 1667. It 
 was "bravely acted," he says, "only both Betterton 
 and Harris could not contain from laughing, in the 
 midst of a most serious part, from the ridiculous 
 mistake of one of the men upon the stage : which I 
 did not like." 
 
 Then for his humility, I find the testimony of
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON in 
 
 Pepys sufficiently corroborated. It may have been 
 politic in him, as a young man, to repair to Mr. 
 Cowley's lodgings in town, and ask from that author 
 his particular views with regard to the Colonel Jolly 
 in the " Cutter of Coleman Street," which had been 
 entrusted to the young actor ; but the politic humil- 
 ity of 1 66 1 was, in fact, the practised modesty of 
 his life. In the very meridian of his fame, he and 
 Mrs. Barry, also, were as ready to take instruction 
 respecting the characters of Jaffier and Belvidera, 
 from poor battered Otway, as they subsequently 
 were from that very fine gentleman, Mr. Congreve, 
 when they were cast for the hero and heroine of 
 his comedies. Even to bombastic Rowe, who hardly 
 knew his own reasons for language put on the lips 
 of his characters, they listened with deference ; and, 
 at another period, " Sir John and Lady Brute " were 
 not undertaken by them till they had conferred with 
 the author, solid Vanbrugh. 
 
 The mention of these last personages reminds me 
 of a domestic circumstance of interest respecting 
 Betterton. He and Mrs. Barry acted the principal 
 characters in the " Provoked Wife ; " the part of 
 Lady Fanciful was played by Mrs. Bowman. This 
 young lady was the adopted child of the Bettertons, 
 and the daughter of a friend (Sir Frederick Watson, 
 Bart.) whose indiscretion or ill-luck had scattered that 
 fortune, the laying of the foundation of which is 
 recorded by Pepys. To the sire, Betterton had 
 entrusted the bulk of his little wealth as a commer- 
 cial venture to the East Indies. A ruinous failure 
 ensued, and I know of nothing which puts the private 
 life of the actor in so pleasing a light, as the fact
 
 112 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 of his adopting the child of the wholly ruined man 
 who had nearly ruined him. He gave her all he had 
 to bestow, careful instruction in his art ; and the 
 lady became an actress of merit. This merit, added 
 to considerable personal charms, won for her the 
 homage of Bowman, a player who became, in course 
 of time, the father of the stage, though he never 
 grew, confessedly, old. In after-years, he would 
 converse freely enough of his wife and her second 
 father, Betterton ; but if you asked the carefully 
 dressed Mr. Bowman anything with respect to his 
 age, no other reply was to be had from him than, 
 " Sir, it is very well ! " 
 
 From what has been previously stated, it will be 
 readily believed that the earnestness of Betterton 
 continued to the last. Severely disciplined, as he 
 had been by Davenant, he subjected himself to the 
 same discipline to the very close ; and he was not 
 pleased to see it disregarded or relaxed by younger 
 actors whom late and gay " last nights " brought ill 
 and incompetent to rehearsal. Those actors might 
 have reaped valuable instruction out of the harvest 
 of old Thomas's experience and wisdom, had they 
 been so minded. 
 
 Young actors of the present time time when 
 pieces run for months and years ; when authors pre- 
 scribe the extent of the run of their own dramas, and 
 when nothing is "damned" by a patient public 
 our young actors have little idea of the labours under- 
 gone by the great predecessors who gave glory to 
 the stage and dignity to the profession. Not only 
 was Betterton's range of characters unlimited, but 
 the number he "created" was never equalled by
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON 113 
 
 any subsequent actor of eminence namely, about 
 130! In some single seasons he studied and repre- 
 sented no less than eight original parts an amount 
 of labour which would shake the nerves of the stout- 
 est among us now. 
 
 His brief relaxation was spent on his little Berk- 
 shire farm, whence he once took a rustic to Bar- 
 tholomew Fair for a holiday. The master of the 
 puppet-show declined to take money for admission. 
 "Mr. Betterton," he said, "is a brother actor!" 
 Roger, the rustic, was slow to believe that the pup- 
 pets were not alive ; and so similar in vitality ap- 
 *peared to him, on the same night, at Drury Lane, 
 the Jupiter and Alcmena in " Amphitryon," played 
 by Betterton and Mrs. Barry, that on being asked 
 what he thought of them, Roger, taking them for 
 puppets, answered, "They did wonderfully Well for 
 rags and sticks." 
 
 Provincial engagements were then unknown. Trav- 
 elling companies, like that of Watkins, visited Bath, 
 a regular company from town going thither only 
 on royal command ; but magistrates ejected strollers 
 from Newbury ; and Reading would not tolerate them, 
 even out of respect for Mr. Betterton. At Wind- 
 sor, however, there was a troupe fairly patronised, 
 where, in 1706, a Mistress Carroll, daughter of an 
 old parliamentarian, was awakening shrill echoes by 
 enacting Alexander the Great. The lady was a 
 friend of Betterton's, who had in the previous year 
 created the part of Lovewell in her comedy of the 
 " Gamester." The powers of Mrs. Carroll had such 
 an effect on Mr. Centlivre, one of the cooks to 
 Queen Anne, that he straightway married her ; and
 
 114 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 when, a few months later, Betterton played Sir 
 Thomas Beaumont, in the lady's comedy, " Love at 
 a Venture," his friend, a royal cook's wife, furnished 
 but an indifferent part for a royal cook's son. 
 
 In other friendships cultivated by the great actor, 
 and in the influences which he exerted over the 
 most intellectual men who were his friends, we may 
 discover proofs of Betterton's moral worth and 
 mental power. Glorious Thomas not only associated 
 with " Glorious John," but became his critic, one 
 to whom Dryden listened with respect, and to whose 
 suggestions he lent a ready acquiescence. In the 
 poet's "Spanish Friar," there was a passage whict 
 spoke of kings' bad titles growing good by time ; a 
 supposed fact which was illustrated by the lines : 
 
 " So, when clay's burned for a hundred years, 
 It starts forth china ! " 
 
 The player fearlessly pronounced this passage "mean," 
 and it was forthwith cancelled by the poet. 
 
 Intimate as this incident shows Betterton to have 
 been with Dryden, there are others which indicate 
 a closer intimacy of the player with Tillotson. The 
 divine was a man who placed charity above rubrics, 
 and discarded bigotry as he did perukes. He 
 could extend a friendly hand to the benevolent Arian, 
 Firmin ; and welcome, even after he entered the 
 archiepiscopal palace at Lambeth, such a visitor as 
 the great actor, Betterton. Did objection come from 
 the rigid and ultra-orthodox ? The prelate might have 
 reminded them that it was not so long since a bishop 
 was hanged, and that the player was a far more 
 agreeable, and, in every respect, a worthier man than
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON 115 
 
 the unlucky diocesan of Waterford. However this 
 may be questioned or conceded, it is indisputable 
 that when Tillotson and Betterton met, the greatest 
 preacher and the greatest player of the day were 
 together. I think, too, that the divine was, in the 
 above respect, somewhat indebted to the actor. We 
 all remember the story how Tillotson was puzzled to 
 account for the circumstance that his friend the actor 
 exercised a vaster power over human sympathies and 
 antipathies than he had hitherto done as a preacher. 
 The reason was plain enough to Thomas Betterton. 
 " You, in the pulpit," said he, " only tell a story ; I, 
 on the stage, show facts." Observe, too, what a 
 prettier way this was of putting it than that adopted 
 by Garrick when one of his clerical friends was simi- 
 larly perplexed. " I account for it in this way," said 
 the latter Roscius : " You deal with facts as if they 
 were fictions ; I deal with fictions as if I had faith 
 in them as facts." Again, what Betterton thus 
 remarked to Tillotson was a modest comment, which 
 Colley Gibber has rendered perfect in its application, 
 in the words which tell us that "the most a Vandyke 
 can arrive at is to make his portraits of great persons 
 seem to think. A Shakespeare goes farther yet, and 
 tells you what his pictures thought. A Betterton 
 steps beyond 'em both, and calls them from the 
 grave, to breathe and be themselves again in feature, 
 speech and motion." That Tillotson profited by the 
 comment of Betterton more gratefully than Bossuet 
 did by the actors, whom he consigned, as such, to 
 the nethermost Gehenna is the more easily to be 
 believed, from the fact that he introduced into the 
 pulpit the custom of preaching from notes. Thence-
 
 n6 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 forth, he left off " telling his story," as from a book, 
 and, having action at command, could the nearer 
 approach to the "acting of facts." 
 
 " Virgilium tantum vidi ! " Pope said this of Dry- 
 den, whom he once saw, when a boy. He was wont 
 to say of Betterton, that he had known him from his 
 own boyhood upwards, till the actor died, in 1710, 
 when the poet was twenty-two years of age. The 
 latter listened eagerly to the old traditions which 
 the player narrated of the earlier times. Betterton 
 was warrant to him on the authority of Davenant, 
 from whom the actor had it, that there was no 
 foundation for the old legend which told of an ungen- 
 erous rivalry between Shakespeare and Old Ben. 
 The player who had been as fearless with Dryden 
 as Socrates was with his friend Euripides "judi- 
 ciously lopping " redundant nonsense or false and 
 mean maxims, as Dryden himself confesses was 
 counsellor, rather than critic or censor, with young 
 Pope. The latter, ^t the age of twelve years, had 
 written a greater portion of an imitative epic poem, 
 entitled " Alcander, Prince of Rhodes." I commend 
 to artists in search of a subject the incident of Pope, 
 at fifteen or sixteen, showing this early effort of his 
 muse to Betterton. It was a poem which abounded 
 in dashing exaggerations, and fair imitations of the 
 styles of the then greater English poets. There was 
 a dramatic vein about it, however, or the player 
 would not have advised the bard to convert his poem 
 into a play. The lad excused himself. He feared 
 encountering either the law of the drama or the taste 
 of the town ; and Betterton left him to his own 
 unfettered way. The actor lived to see that the boy
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON 117 
 
 was the better judge of his own powers, for young 
 Pope produced his " Essay on Criticism " the year 
 before Betterton died. A few years later the poet 
 rendered any possible fulfilment of the player's 
 counsel impossible, by dropping the manuscript of 
 "Alcander" into the flames. Atterbury had less 
 esteem for this work than Betterton. " I am not 
 sorry your 'Alcander' is burnt," he says, "but had 
 I known your intentions I would have interceded for 
 the first page, and put it, with your leave, among my 
 curiosities." 
 
 Pope remembered the player with affection. For 
 some time after Betterton's decease the print-shops 
 abounded with mezzotinto engravings of his portrait 
 by Kneller. Of this portrait the poet himself exe- 
 cuted a copy, which still exists. His friendly inter- 
 course with the half-mad Irish artist, Jervas, is well 
 known. When alone, Pope was the poet ; with 
 Jervas, and under his instructions, he became an 
 artist, in his way ; but yet an artist, if a copier 
 of portraits deserve so lofty a name. In 1713, he 
 writes to Gay : " You may guess in how uneasy a 
 state I am, when every day the performances of 
 others appear more beautiful and excellent, and my 
 own more despicable. I have thrown away three 
 Doctor Swifts, each of which was once my vanity, 
 two Lady Bridgewaters, a Duchess of Montague, half 
 a dozen earls, and one Knight of the Garter." He 
 perfected, however, and kept his portrait of Betterton, 
 from Kneller, which passed into the collection of his 
 friend Murray, and which is now in that of Murray's 
 descendant, the Earl of Mansfield. 
 
 Kneller's portrait of Betterton is enshrined among
 
 Il8 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 goodly company at princely Knowle the patrimony 
 of the Sackvilles. It is there, with that of his fellow 
 actor, Mohun ; his friend, Dryden ; and his great 
 successor, Garrick, the latter being the work of 
 Reynolds. The grand old Kentish Hall is a fitting 
 place for such a brotherhood. 
 
 This master of his art had the greatest esteem for 
 a silent and attentive audience. It was easy, he 
 used to say, for any player to rouse the house, but 
 to subdue it, render it rapt and hushed to, at the 
 most, a murmur, was work for an artist ; and in such 
 effects no one approached him. And yet the rage 
 of Othello was more "in his line" than the tender- 
 ness of Castalio ; but he touched the audience in his 
 rage. Harris competed with him for a brief period, 
 but if he ever excelled him it was only in very light 
 comedy. The dignity and earnestness of Betterton 
 were so notorious and so attractive, that people 
 flocked only to hear him speak a prologue, while 
 brother actors looked on, admired, and despaired. 
 
 Age, trials, infirmity never damped his ardour. 
 Even angry and unsuccessful authors, who railed 
 against the players who had brought their dramas to 
 grief, made exception of Betterton. He was always 
 ready, always perfect, always anxious to effect the 
 utmost within his power. Among the foremost of 
 his merits may be noticed his freedom from all jeal- 
 ousy, and his willingness to assist others up the 
 height which he had himself surmounted. That he 
 played Bassanio to Doggett's Shylock is, perhaps, 
 not saying much by way of illustration ; but that he 
 acted Horatio to Powell's Lothario ; that he gave 
 up Jupiter (Amphitryon) and Valentine, two of his
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON 119 
 
 original parts, to Wilks, and even yielded Othello, 
 one of the most elaborate and exquisite of his " pre- 
 sentments," to Thurmond, are fair instances in point. 
 When Bowman introduced young Barton Booth to 
 "old Thomas," the latter welcomed him heartily, and 
 after seeing his Maximus, in " Valentinian," recog- 
 nised in him his successor. At that moment the 
 town, speculating on the demise of their favourite, had 
 less discernment. They did not know whether Ver- 
 bruggen, with his voice like a cracked drum, or idle 
 Powell, with his lazy stage-swing, might aspire to the 
 sovereignty ; but they were slow to believe in Booth, 
 who was not the only young actor who was shaded 
 in the setting glories of the sun of the English 
 theatre. 
 
 When Colley Gibber first appeared before a Lon- 
 don audience, he was a "volunteer" who went in for 
 practice ; and he had the misfortune, on one occasion, 
 to put the great master out, by some error on his 
 own part. Betterton subsequently inquired the young 
 man's name, and the amount of his salary ; and hear- 
 ing that the former was Gibber, and that, as yet, he 
 received nothing, " Put him down ten shillings 
 a week," said Betterton, "and forfeit him five." 
 Colley was delighted. It was placing his foot on 
 the first round of the ladder; and his respect for 
 "Mr. Betterton" was unbounded. Indeed there 
 were few who did not pay him some homage. The 
 king himself delighted to honour him. Charles, 
 James, Queen Mary, and Queen Anne, sent him 
 assurances of their admiration ; but King William 
 admitted him to a private audience, and when the 
 patentees of Drury Lane were, through lack of gen-
 
 120 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 eral patronage, suggesting the expediency of a reduc- 
 tion of salaries, great Nassau placed in the hands of 
 Betterton the license which freed him from the thral- 
 dom of the Drury tyrants, and authorised him to open 
 the second theatre erected in Lincoln's Inn Fields. 
 Next to his most sacred Majesty, perhaps the most 
 formidable personage in the kingdom, in the eyes of 
 the actors, was the lord chamberlain, who was master 
 of the very lives of the performers, having the abso- 
 lute control of the stage whereby they lived. This 
 potentate, however, seemed ever to favour Betterton. 
 When unstable yet useful Powell suddenly abandoned 
 Drury Lane to join the company in Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, the chamberlain did not deign to notice the 
 offence ; but when, all as suddenly, the capricious 
 and unreliable Powell abandoned the house in the 
 Fields, and betook himself again to that in the Lane 
 the angry lord chamberlain sent a " messenger " after 
 him to his lodgings, and clapped the unoffending 
 Thespian, for a couple of days, in the Gate House. 
 While Powell was with Betterton, the latter pro- 
 duced the " Fair Penitent," by Rowe, Mrs. Barry 
 being the Calista. When the dead body of Lothario 
 was lying decently covered on the stage, Powell's 
 dresser, Warren, lay there for his master, who, re- 
 quiring the services of the man in the dressing-room, 
 and not remembering where he was, called aloud for 
 him so repeatedly, and at length so angrily, that 
 Warren leaped up in a fright, and ran from the 
 stage. His cloak, however, got hooked to the bier, 
 and this he dragged after him, sweeping down, as he 
 dashed off in his confusion, table, lamps, books, bones, 
 and upsetting the astounded Calista herself. Irre-
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON 121 
 
 pressible laughter convulsed the audience, but Bet- 
 terton's reverence for the dignity of tragedy was 
 shocked, and he stopped the piece in its full career 
 of success, until the town had ceased to think of 
 Warren's escapade. 
 
 I know of but one man who has spoken of Better- 
 ton at all disparagingly old Anthony Aston. But 
 even that selfish cynic is constrained so to modify 
 his censure as to convert it into praise. When 
 Betterton was approaching threescore years and ten, 
 Anthony could have wished that he "would have 
 resigned the part of Hamlet to some young actor 
 who might have personated, though," mark the dis- 
 tinction, "not have acted it better." Aston's grounds 
 for his wish are so many justifications of Betterton ; 
 "for," says Anthony, "when he threw himself at 
 Ophelia's feet, he appeared a little too grave for a 
 young student just from the University of Witten- 
 berg." "His repartees," Anthony thinks, "were 
 more those of a philosopher than the sporting flashes 
 of young Hamlet ; " as if Hamlet were not the 
 gravest of students, and the most philosophical of 
 young Danes ! Aston caricatures the aged actor 
 only again to commend him. He depreciates the 
 figure which time had touched, magnifies the defects, 
 registers the lack of power, and the slow sameness 
 of action ; hints at a little remains of paralysis, and 
 at gout in the now thick legs, profanely utters the 
 words " fat " and " clumsy," and suggests that the 
 face is " slightly pock-marked." But we are there- 
 with told that his air was serious, venerable, and 
 majestic; and that though his voice was "low and 
 grumbling, he could turn it by an artful climax which
 
 122 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 enforced an universal attention even from the fops and 
 orange-girls." Gibber declares that there was such 
 enchantment in his voice alone, the multitude no 
 more cared for sense in the words he spoke, "than 
 our musical connoisseurs think it essential in the 
 celebrated airs of an Italian Opera." Again, he 
 says, " Could how Betterton spoke be as easily known 
 as what he spoke, then might you see the Muse of 
 Shakespeare in her triumph." "I never," says 
 honest Colley, "heard a line in tragedy come from 
 Betterton, wherein my judgment, my ear, and my 
 imagination were not fully satisfied, which, since his 
 time, I cannot equally say of any one actor what- 
 soever." This was written in 1740, the year before 
 little David took up the rich inheritance of "old 
 Thomas" whose Hamlet, however, the latter actor 
 could hardly have equalled. The next great pleas- 
 ure to seeing Betterton's Hamlet is to read Gibber's 
 masterly analysis of it. A couple of lines reveal to 
 us the leading principle of his Brutus. " When the 
 Betterton-Brutus," says Colley, "was provoked in 
 his dispute with Cassius, his spirit flew only to his 
 eye ; his steady look alone supplied that terror which 
 he disdained an intemperance in his voice should 
 rise to." In his least effective characters, he, with 
 an exception already noted, excelled all other actors ; 
 but in characters such as Hamlet and Othello he 
 excelled himself. Gibber never beheld his equal for 
 at least two and thirty years after Betterton's death, 
 when, in 1741, court and city, with doctors of 
 divinity and enthusiastic bishops, were hurrying to 
 Goodman's Fields, to witness the Richard of the 
 gentleman from Ipswich, named Garrick.
 
 THOMAS BETTERTON 123 
 
 During the long career of Betterton he played at 
 Drury Lane, Dorset Gardens, Lincoln's Inn Fields 
 (in both theatres), and at the opera-house in the 
 Haymarket. The highest salary awarded to this great 
 master of his art was ^5 per week, which included i 
 by way of pension to his wife, after her retirement in 
 1694. In consideration of his merits, he was allowed to 
 take a benefit in the season of 1708-09, when the actor 
 had an ovation. In money for admission he received, 
 indeed, only 76 ; but in complimentary guineas, he 
 took home with him to Russell Street ^450 more. 
 The terms in which the Tatler spoke of him living, 
 the tender and affectionate, manly and heart- 
 stirring passages in which the same writer bewailed 
 him when dead, are eloquent and enduring testi- 
 monies of the greatness of an actor, who was the glory 
 of our stage, and of the worth of a man whose loss 
 cost his sorrowing widow her reason. " Decus et 
 Dolor" "The grace and the grief of the theatre." 
 It is well applied to him who laboured incessantly, 
 lived irreproachably, and died in harness, universally 
 esteemed and regretted. He was the jewel of the 
 English stage; and I never think of him, and of 
 some to whom his example was given in vain, with- 
 out saying, with Overbury, " I value a worthy actor 
 by the corruption of some few of the quality, as I 
 would do gold in the ore ; I should not mind the 
 dross, but the purity of the metal." 
 
 The feeling of the English public toward Betterton 
 is in strong contrast with that of the French toward 
 their great actor, Baron. Both men grew old in the 
 public service, but both were not treated with equal 
 respect in the autumn of that service. Betterton, at
 
 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 seventy, was upheld by general esteem and crowned 
 by general applause. When Baron, at seventy, was 
 playing Nero, the Paris pit audience, longing for 
 novelty, hissed him as he came down the stage. The 
 fine old player calmly crossed his arms, and looking 
 his rude assailants in the face, exclaimed, " Ungrate- 
 ful pit ! 'twas I who taught you ! " That was the 
 form of Baron's exit ; and Clairon was as cruelly 
 driven from the scene when her dimming eyes failed 
 to stir the audience with the old, strange, and de- 
 licious terror. In other guise did the English public 
 part with their old friend and servant, the noble 
 actor, fittingly described in the license granted to 
 him by King William, as " Thomas Betterton, Gentle- 
 man."
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " EXEUNT " AND " ENTER " 
 
 AFTER Betterton, there was not, in the duke's 
 company, a more accomplished actor than Harris. 
 He lived in gayer society than Betterton, and cared 
 more for the associates he found there. He had 
 some knowledge of art, danced gracefully, and had 
 that dangerous gift for a young man, a charming 
 voice, with a love for displaying it. His portrait 
 was taken by Mr. Hailes, " in his habit of Henry 
 V., mighty like a player ; ' ' and his Cardinal Wol- 
 sey, which latter portrait may now be seen in the 
 Pepysian Library at Cambridge. 
 
 Pepys assigns good grounds for his esteem for 
 Harris. "I do find him," says the diarist, "a very 
 excellent person, such as in my whole acquaintance 
 I do not know another better qualified for converse, 
 whether in things of his own trade, or of other kind ; 
 a man of great understanding and observation, and 
 very agreeable in the manner of his discourse, and 
 civil, as far as is possible. I was mighty pleased 
 with his company," a company with which were 
 united, now Killigrew and the rakes, and anon, 
 Cooper the artist, and " Cooper's cosen Jacke," and 
 " Mr. Butler, that wrote ' Hudibras,' " being, says Mr. 
 Pepys, "all eminent men in their way." Indeed, 
 
 125
 
 126 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Harris was to be found in company even more 
 eminent than the above, and at the great coffee- 
 house in Covent Garden he listened to or talked 
 with Dryden, and held his own against the best wits 
 of the town. The playwrights were there, too ; but 
 these were to be found in the coffee-houses, gener- 
 ally, often wrapped up in their cloaks, and eagerly 
 heeding all that the critics had to say to each other 
 respecting the last new play. 
 
 Harris was aware that in one or two light charac- 
 ters he was Better-ton's equal. He was a restless 
 actor, threatening, when discontented, to secede 
 from the duke's to the king's company, and causing 
 equal trouble to his manager, Davenant, and to his 
 monarch, Charles, the two officials most vexed in 
 the settling of the little kingdom of the stage. 
 
 There was a graceful, general actor of the troupe to 
 which Harris belonged, who drew upon himself the 
 special observation of the government at home and 
 an English ambassador abroad. Scudamore was the 
 original Garcia of Congreve's " Mourning Bride ; " 
 he also played amorous young knights, sparkling 
 young gentlemen, scampish French and English beaux, 
 gay and good-looking kings, and roistering kings' 
 sons ; such as Harry, Prince of Wales. Off the 
 stage, he enacted another part. When King James 
 was in exile, Scudamore was engaged as a Jacobite 
 agent, and he carried many a despatch between Lon- 
 don and St. Germains. But our ambassador, the 
 Earl of Manchester, had his eye upon him. One of 
 the earl's despatches to the English government, 
 written in 1700, concludes with the words: "One 
 Scudamore, a player in Lincoln's Inn Fields, has
 
 "EXEUNT" AND "ENTER" 127 
 
 been here, and was with the late king, and often at 
 St. Germains. He is now, I believe, at London. 
 Several such sort of fellows go and come very often ; 
 but I cannot see how it is to be prevented, for with- 
 out a positive oath nothing can be done to them." 
 The date of this despatch is August, 1700, at which 
 time the player ought to have been engaged in a less 
 perilous character, for an entry in Luttrell's Diary, 
 28th May, i/oo, records that Mr. Scudamore of the 
 playhouse is married to a young lady of ;4,ooo 
 fortune, who fell in love with him. 
 
 Cave Underhill was another member of Davenant's 
 company. He was not a man for a lady to fall in 
 love with; but in 1668 Davenant pronounced him 
 the truest comedian of his troupe. He was on the 
 stage from 1661 to 1710, and during that time the 
 town saw no such gravedigger in " Hamlet " as this 
 tall, fat, broad-faced, flat-nosed, wide-mouthed, thick- 
 lipped, rough- voiced, awkwardly active low comedian. 
 So modest was he also that he never understood his 
 own popularity, and the house was convulsed with 
 his solemn Don Quixote and his stupid Lolpoop in 
 "The Squire of Alsatia," without Cave's being able 
 to account for it. 
 
 In the stolid, the booby, the dully malicious, the 
 bluntly vivacious, the perverse humour, combining 
 wit with ill-nature, Underhill was the chief of the 
 actors of the half century, during which he kept the 
 stage. Gibber avers thus much, and adds that he 
 had not seen Cave's equal in Sir Sampson Legend 
 in Congreve's " Love for Love." A year before the 
 old actor ceased to linger on the stage he had once 
 made light with laughter, a benefit was awarded him,
 
 128 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 viz., on the 3d of June, 1709. The patronage of the 
 public was previously bespoken by Mr. Bickerstaffe, 
 in the Tatler, whose father had known " honest Cave 
 Underbill " when he was a boy. The Tatler praises 
 the old comedian for the natural style of his acting, 
 in which he avoided all exaggeration, and never 
 added a word to his author's text, a vice with the 
 younger actors of the time. 
 
 On this occasion Underbill played his old part of 
 the gravedigger, professedly because he was fit for no 
 other. His judgment was not ill-founded, if Gibber's 
 testimony be true that he was really worn and dis- 
 abled, and excited pity rather than laughter. The 
 old man died a pensioner of the theatre whose pro- 
 prietors he had helped to enrich, with the reputation 
 of having, under the pseudonym of Elephant Smith, 
 composed a mock funeral sermon on Titus Gates ; 
 and with the further repute of being an ultra-Tory, 
 addicted in coffee-houses to drink the Duke of York's 
 health more heartily than that of his brother, the 
 king. 
 
 With rare exchange of actors, and exclusive right 
 of representing particular pieces, the two theatres 
 continued in opposition to each other until the two 
 companies were formed into one, in the year 1682. 
 Meanwhile, fire destroyed the old edifice of the king's 
 company, in Drury Lane, in January, 1672, and till 
 Wren's new theatre was ready for them in 1674, the un- 
 housed troupe played occasionally at Dorset Gardens, 
 or at Lincoln's Inn Fields, as opportunity offered. 
 On the occasion of opening the new house, contem- 
 porary accounts state that the prices of admission 
 were raised ; to the boxes, from 2s. 6d, to 4?. ; pit,
 
 " EXEUNT " AND " ENTER " 129 
 
 from is. 6d. to 2s. 6d. ; the first gallery, from is. to 
 is. 6d. ; and the upper gallery, from 6d. to is. 
 Pepys, however, on the iQth October, 1667, paid 
 45. for admittance to the upper boxes, if his record 
 be true. 
 
 Down to the year 1682, the king's company lost 
 several old and able actors, and acquired only Powell, 
 Griffin, and Beeston. George Powell was the son of 
 an obscure actor. His own brilliancy was marred by 
 his devotion to jollity, and this devotion became the 
 more profound as George saw himself surpassed by 
 steadier actors, one of whom, Wilks, in his disap- 
 pointment, he challenged to single combat, and, in 
 the cool air of "next morning," was sorry for his 
 folly. Idleness made him defer learning his parts till 
 the last moment ; his memory often failed him at the 
 most important crisis of the play, and the public dis- 
 pleasure fell heavily and constantly on this clever, but 
 reckless, actor. The Tatler calls him the "haughty 
 George Powell," when referring to his appearance in 
 Falstaff for his benefit in April, 1712. "The haughty 
 George Powell hopes all the good-natured part of the 
 town will favour him whom they applauded in Alex- 
 ander, Timon, Lear, and Orestes, with their company 
 this night, when he hazards all his heroic glory in the 
 humbler condition of honest Jack Falstaff." Valuable 
 aid, like the above, he obtained from the Spectator also, 
 with useful admonition to boot, from which he did not 
 care to profit ; and he fell into such degradation that 
 his example was a wholesome terror to young actors 
 willing to follow it, but fearful of the consequences. 
 During his career, from 1687 to 1714, in which year 
 he died, he originated about forty new parts, and in
 
 130 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 some of them, such as Brisk, in the "Double 
 Dealer;" Aboan, in "Oronooko;" the gallant, gay 
 Lothario; Lord Morelove, in the "Careless Hus- 
 band;" and Portius, in "Cato," he has rarely been 
 equalled. On the first night of the " Relapse," in 
 which he played Worthy, he was so fired by his liba- 
 tions, that Mrs. Rogers, as Amanda, was frightened 
 out of her wits by his tempestuous love-making. 
 Powell's literary contributions to the drama were 
 such as a man of his quality was likely to make, 
 chiefly plagiarisms awkwardly appropriated. 
 
 Griffin was an inferior actor to Powell ; but he was 
 a wiser and a better man. He belonged to that class 
 of actors whom "society" welcomed with alacrity. 
 He was, moreover, of the class which had served in 
 the field as well as on the stage, and when " Captain 
 Griffin " died in Queen Anne's reign, the stage lost a 
 respectable actor, and society a clever and a worthy 
 member. 
 
 The accessions to the duke's company were of 
 more importance than those to the company of the 
 Theatre Royal. In 1672, the two poets, Lee and 
 Otway, tempted fortune on the stage ; Lee, in one or 
 two parts, such as the Captain of the Watch, in Payne's 
 "Fatal Jealousy," and Duncan, in "Macbeth." Ot- 
 way, as the king in Mrs. Behn's "Forced Marriage." 
 They both failed. Lee, one of the most beautiful of 
 readers, lost his voice through nervousness. Otway, 
 audacious enough at the coffee-houses, lost his con- 
 fidence. There were eight other actors of the period 
 whose success was unquestionable and well deserved. 
 Little Bowman, who between this period and 1739, 
 the year of his death, never failed to appear when his
 
 "EXEUNT" AND "ENTER" 131 
 
 name was in the bills. He was a noted bell-ringer, 
 had sung songs to Charles II., and, when "father of 
 the stage," he exacted applause from the second 
 George. Cademan was another of the company. 
 Like Betterton and Cartwright, he had learnt the 
 mystery of the book-trade before he appeared as a 
 player. He was driven from the latter vocation 
 through an accident. Engaged in a fencing-scene 
 with Harris, in "The Man's the Master," he was 
 severely wounded by his adversary's foil, in the hand 
 and eye, and he lost power not only of action but of 
 speech. For nearly forty years the company assigned 
 him a modest pension ; and between the benevolence 
 of his brethren and the small profits of his publish- 
 ing, his life was rendered tolerable, if not altogether 
 happy. 
 
 His comrade, Jevon, an ex-dancing master, was 
 one of the hilarious actors. He was the original 
 Jobson in his own little comedy, "A Devil of a 
 Wife," which has been altered into the farce of " The 
 Devil to Pay." He took great liberties with authors 
 and audience. He made Settle half-mad, and the 
 house ecstatic, when having, as Lycurgus, Prince of 
 China, to "fall on his sword," he placed it flat on the 
 stage, and falling over it, "died," according to the 
 direction of the acting copy. He took as great 
 liberties at the coffee-house. " You are wiping your 
 dirty boots with my clean napkin," said an offended 
 waiter to him. " Never mind, boy," was the reply ; 
 " I am not proud it will do for me ! " The dust of 
 this jester lies in Hampstead churchyard. 
 
 Longer known was Anthony Lee or Leigh, that 
 industrious and mirthful player, who, in the score of
 
 132 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 years he was before the public from 1672 to 1692 
 originated above thrice that number of characters. 
 His masterpiece was Dryden's Spanish friar, Domi- 
 nique. How he looked in that once famous part, 
 may be seen by any one who can gain access to Knowle, 
 where his portrait, painted for the Earl of Dorset, 
 still hangs and all but speaks. But we may see 
 how Leigh looked by another portrait, painted in 
 words, by Gibber. " In the canting, grave hypocrisy, 
 of the Spanish Friar, Leigh stretched the veil of piety 
 so thinly over him, that in every look, word, and 
 motion, you saw a palpable, wicked slyness shine 
 throughout it. Here he kept his vivacity demurely 
 confined, till the pretended duty of his function de- 
 manded it ; and then he exerted it with a choleric, 
 sacerdotal insolence. I have never yet seen any one 
 that has filled them " (the scenes of broad jests) 
 "with half the truth and spirit of Leigh. I do not 
 doubt but the poet's knowledge of Leigh's genius 
 helped him to many a pleasant stroke of nature, 
 which, without that knowledge, never might have 
 entered into his conception." Leigh had the art of 
 making pieces dull to the reader side-splitting 
 mirth to an audience. In such pieces he and Nokes 
 kept up the ball between them ; but with the players 
 perished also the plays. 
 
 Less happy than Leigh was poor Matthew Med- 
 bourne, an actor of merit, and a young man of some 
 learning, whose brief career was cut short by a too 
 fervent zeal for his religion, which led him into a 
 participation in the " Popish Plot." The testimony 
 of Titus Gates caused his arrest on the 26th of 
 November, 1678, and his death, for poor Med-
 
 "EXEUNT" AND "ENTER" 133 
 
 bourne died of the Newgate rigour in the following 
 March. He is memorable as being the first who 
 introduced Moliere's "Tartuffe" on the English 
 stage, in a close translation, which was acted in 
 1670, with remarkable success. Gibber's " Non- 
 juror" (1717), and Bicker staffe's "Hypocrite" 
 (1768), were only adaptations the first of "Tar- 
 tuffe," and the second of the "Nonjuror." Mr. 
 Oxenforde, however, reproduced the original in a 
 more perfect form than Medbourne, in a translation 
 in verse, which was brought out at the Haymarket, 
 in 1851, with a success most honestly earned by all, 
 and especially deserving on the part of Mr. Webster, 
 who played the principal character. 
 
 Sandford and Smith were two actors, whose names 
 constantly recur together, but whose merits were not 
 all of the same degree. The tall, handsome, manly 
 Smith frequently played Banquo, when his ghost, in 
 the same tragedy, was represented by the short, spare, 
 drolly ill-featured, and undignified Sandford ! The 
 latter was famous for his villains, from those of 
 tragedy to ordinary stage ruffians in broad belt and 
 black wig, permanent type of those wicked people 
 in melodramas to this day. This idiosyncrasy amus- 
 ingly puzzled Charles II., who, in supposed allusion 
 to Shaftesbury, declared that the greatest villain of 
 his time was fair-haired. 
 
 The public, of this period, were so accustomed to 
 see Sandford represent the malignant heroes, that 
 when they once saw him as an honest man, who did 
 not prove to be a crafty knave before the end of the 
 fifth act, they hissed the piece, out of sheer vexation. 
 Sandford rendered villainy odious, by his forcible
 
 134 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 representation of it. By a look, he could win the 
 attention of an audience "to whatever he judged 
 worth more than their ordinary notice ; " and by 
 attending to the punctuation of a passage, he divested 
 it of the jingle of rhyme, or the measured monotony 
 of blank verse. 
 
 So misshapen, harsh, fierce, yet craftily gentle and 
 knavishly persuasive, could Sandford render himself, 
 Gibber believes that Shakspeare, conscious of other 
 qualities in him, would have chosen him to represent 
 Richard, had poet and player been contemporaneous. 
 The generous Colley adds, that if there was anything 
 good in his own Richard, it was because he had 
 modelled it after the fashion in which he thought 
 Sandford would have represented that monarch. 
 Sandford withdrew from the stage, after thirty- 
 seven years' service, commencing in 1661, and 
 terminating in 1698. 
 
 The career of his more 'celebrated colleague, Smith, 
 extended only from 1663 to 1696, and that with the 
 interruption of several years when his strong Tory- 
 ism made him unacceptable to the prejudiced Whig 
 audiences of the early part of the reign of William. 
 He originally represented Sir Fopling Flutter (1676), 
 and Pierre (1682); Chamont (1680), in "The Or- 
 phan," and Scandal (1695), in "Love for Love." In 
 the following year he died in harness. The long part 
 of Cyaxares, in "Cyriis the Great," overtaxed his 
 strength, and on the fourth representation of that 
 wearisome tragedy, Smith was taken ill, and died. 
 
 King James, in the person of Smith, vindicated the 
 nobility of his profession. "Mr. Smith," says Gib- 
 ber, with fine satire, " whose character as a gentleman
 
 "EXEUNT" AND "ENTER" 135 
 
 could have been no way impeached, had he not 
 degraded it by being a celebrated actor, had the 
 misfortune, in a dispute with a gentleman behind the 
 scenes, to receive a blow from him. The same night 
 an account of this action was carried to the king, to 
 whom the gentleman was represented so grossly in 
 the wrong, that the next day his Majesty sent to for- 
 bid him the court upon it. This indignity, cast upon 
 a gentleman only for maltreating a player, was looked 
 upon as the concern of every gentleman ; and a party 
 was soon formed to assert and vindicate their honour, 
 by humbling this favoured actor, whose slight injury 
 had been judged equal to so severe a notice. Accord- 
 ingly, the next time Smith acted, he was received 
 with a chorus of catcalls, that soon convinced him he 
 should not be suffered to proceed in his part ; upon 
 which, without the least discomposure, he ordered the 
 curtain to be dropped, and having a competent for- 
 tune of his own, thought the conditions of adding to 
 it, by remaining on the stage, were too dear, and 
 from that day entirely quitted it." Not "entirely," 
 for he returned to it, in 1695, after a secession of 
 eleven years, under the persuasion, it is believed, of 
 noble friends and ancient comrades. Doctor Burney 
 states that the audience made a political matter of it. 
 If so, Whigs and Tories had not long to contend, for 
 the death of this refined player soon supervened. 
 
 Of the two most eminent ladies who joined the 
 duke's company previous to the union of the two 
 houses, Lady Slingsby (formerly Mrs. Aldridge, 
 next Mrs. Lee) is of note for the social rank she 
 achieved, Mrs. Barry for a theatrical reputation 
 which placed her on a level with Betterton himself.
 
 136 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Lady Slingsby withdrew from the stage in 1685, after 
 a brief course of ten or a dozen years. She died in 
 the spring of 1694, and was interred in old St. Pan- 
 eras churchyard, as " Dame Mary Slingsby, Widow." 
 That is the sum of what is known of a lady whom 
 report connects with the Yorkshire baronets of 
 Scriven. Of her colleague there is more to be 
 said ; but the " famous Mrs. Barry " may claim a 
 chapter to herself.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ELIZABETH BARRY 
 
 THE "great Mrs. Barry," the "Handbook of Lon- 
 don " tells us, lies buried in Westminster Cloisters. 
 I did not there look for her tomb. To come at the 
 grave of the great actress, I passed through Acton 
 Vale and into the ugliest of village churches, and, 
 after service, asked to be shown the tablet which 
 recorded the death and burial of Elizabeth Barry. 
 The pew-opener directed me to a mural monument 
 which, I found, bore the name of one of the family of 
 Smith ! 
 
 I remonstrated. The good woman could not ac- 
 count for it. She had always taken that for Eliza- 
 beth Barry's monument. It was in the church 
 somewhere. " There is no stone to any such person 
 in this church," said the clerk, "and I know 'em 
 all ! " We walked down the aisle discussing the 
 matter, and paused at the staircase at the west end ; 
 and as I looked at the wall, while still conversing, I 
 saw, in the shade, the tablet which Curie says is 
 outside, in God's Acre, and thereon I read aloud 
 these words : " Near this place lies the body of 
 Elizabeth Barry, of the parish of St. Mary le Savoy, 
 who departed this life the 7th of November, 1713, 
 aged 55 years." "That is she ! " said I.
 
 138 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 The two officials looked puzzled and inquiring. 
 At length the pew-opener ventured to ask : " And 
 who was she, sir ? " 
 
 "The original Monimia, Belvidera, Isabella, Ca- 
 lista " 
 
 " Lor ! " said the good woman, " only a player ! " 
 
 " Only a player ! " This of the daughter of an old 
 Cavalier ! 
 
 The seventeenth century gave many ladies to the 
 stage, and Elizabeth Barry was certainly the most 
 famous of them. She was the daughter of a bar- 
 rister, wh9 raised a regiment for the king, and 
 thereby was himself raised to the rank of colonel. 
 The effort did not help his Majesty, and it ruined 
 the colonel, whose daughter was born in the year 
 1658. 
 
 Davenant took the fatherless girl into his house, 
 and trained her for the stage, while the flash of her 
 light eyes beneath her dark hair and brows was as 
 yet mere girlish spirit ; it was not intelligence. That 
 was given her by Rochester. Davenant was in de- 
 spair at her dulness, but he acknowledged the dignity 
 of her manners. At three separate periods managers 
 rejected her. " She will never be an actress ! " they 
 exclaimed. Rochester protested that he would make 
 her one in six months. 
 
 The wicked young earl, who lived in Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, near the theatre, became her master, and, of 
 course, fell in love with his pupil. The pains he 
 bestowed upon his young mistress were infinite. 
 Sentence by sentence he made her understand her 
 author, and the intelligence of the girl leaped into 
 life and splendour under such instruction. To fa-
 
 ELIZABETH BARRY 139 
 
 miliarise her with the stage, he superintended thirty 
 rehearsals thereon of each character in which she 
 was to appear. Of these rehearsals, twelve were in 
 full costume ; and when she was about to enact Isa- 
 bella, the Hungarian queen, in " Mustapha," the page 
 who bore her train was tutored so to move as to aid 
 in the display of grace and majesty which was to 
 charm the town. 
 
 For some time, however, the town refused to rec- 
 ognise any magic in the charmer, and managers 
 despaired of the success of a young actress who 
 could not decently thread the mazes of a country- 
 dance. Hamilton owned her beauty but denied her 
 talent. Nevertheless she one night burst forth in 
 all her grandeur, and Mustapha and Zanger were not 
 more ardently in love with the brilliant queen than 
 the audience were. At the head of the latter were 
 Charles II. and the Duke and Duchess of York. 
 Rochester had asked for their presence, and they 
 came to add to the triumph of Colonel Barry's 
 daughter. 
 
 Crabbed old Anthony Aston, the actor and promp- 
 ter, spoke disparagingly of the young lady. Accord- 
 ing to him she was no colonel's daughter, but 
 "woman to Lady Shelton, my godmother." The 
 two situations were not incompatible. It was no 
 unusual thing to find a lady in straitened circum- 
 stances fulfilling the office of "woman" or "maid" 
 to the wives of peers and baronets. We have an 
 instance in the " Memoirs of Mrs-. Delaney," and 
 another in the person of Mrs. Siddons. 
 
 Successful as Elizabeth Barry was in parts which 
 she had studied under her preceptor, Lord Rochester,
 
 140 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 she cannot be said to have established herself as the 
 greatest actress of her time till the year 1680. Up 
 to this period she appeared in few characters suited 
 to her abilities. In tragedies she enacted the confi- 
 dants to the great theatrical queens, Mrs. Lee and 
 Mrs. Betterton ; in comedies, the rattling, reckless, 
 and audacious women, at whose sallies the pit roared 
 approbation, and the box ladies were not much 
 startled. But, in the year just named, Otway pro- 
 duced his tragedy of " The Orphan, or the Unhappy 
 Marriage," in which Mrs. Barry was the Monimia to 
 the Castalio of Betterton. On the same night the 
 part of the page was charmingly played by a future 
 great actress, Mrs. Bracegirdle, then not six years 
 old. In Monimia, Mrs. Barry exercised some of 
 those attributes which she possessed above all ac- 
 tresses Gibber had ever seen, and which those who 
 had not seen her were unable to conceive. " In 
 characters of greatness," says Gibber, in his " Apol- 
 ogy." " she had a presence of elevated dignity ; her 
 mien and motion superb and gracefully majestic ; 
 her voice full, clear, and strong, so that no violence 
 of passion could be too much for her; and when 
 distress or tenderness possessed her, she subsided 
 into the most affecting melody and softness." 
 
 From the position which she took by acting 
 Monimia, Mrs. Barry was never shaken by any rival, 
 however eminent. Her industry was as indefati- 
 gable as that of Betterton. During the thirty-seven 
 years she was on the stage, beginning at Dorset 
 Gardens, in 1673, and ending at the Haymarket, in 
 1710, she originated 112 characters! Monimia was 
 the nineteenth of the characters of which she was
 
 ELIZABETH BARRY 141 
 
 the original representative ; the first of those which 
 mark the "stations" of her glory. In 1682 she 
 added another leaf to the chaplet of her own and 
 Ot way's renown by her performance of Belvidera. 
 In the softer passions of this part she manifested 
 herself the "mistress of tears," and night after night 
 the town flocked to weep at her bidding, and to 
 enjoy the luxury of woe. The triumph endured for 
 years. Her Monimia and Belvidera were not even 
 put aside by her Cassandra in the " Cleomenes " of 
 Dryden, first acted at the Theatre Royal, in 1692. 
 "Mrs. Barry," says the author, "always excellent, 
 has, in this tragedy, excelled herself, and gained a 
 reputation beyond any woman whom I have ever seen 
 on the theatre." The praise is not unduly applied, 
 for Mrs. Barry could give expression to the rant of 
 Dryden, and even to that of Lee, without ever verg- 
 ing toward bombast. In " scenes of anger, defiance, 
 or resentment," writes Gibber, "while she was im- 
 petuous and terrible, she poured out the sentiment 
 with an enchanting harmony." Anthony Aston de- 
 scribes her in tragedy as " solemn and august ; " and 
 she, perhaps, was never more so than in Isabella, the 
 heroine of the tragic drama rather than tragedy by 
 Southerne, " The Fatal Marriage." Aston remarks 
 that "her face ever expressed the passions ; it some- 
 what preceded her action, as her action did her 
 words." Her versatility was marvellous, and it is 
 not ill illustrated by the fact that in the same season 
 she created two such opposite characters as Lady 
 Brute in Vanbrugh's " Provoked Wife," and Zara in 
 Congreve's "Mourning Bride." The last of her 
 great tragic triumphs, in a part of which she was
 
 142 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 the original representative, occurred in 1703, when, 
 in her forty-fifth year, she played Calista in "The 
 Fair Penitent," that wholesale felony of Rowe from 
 Massinger! Though the piece did not answer the 
 expectations of the public, Mrs. Barry did not fall 
 short of them in the heroine ; and she, perhaps, sur- 
 passed expectation when, in 1705, she elicited the 
 admiration of the town by her creation of the spark- 
 ling character of Clarissa in " The Confederacy." 
 By this time she was growing rich in wealth as well 
 as in glory. In former days, when the play was 
 over, the attendant boy used to call for " Mrs. Barry's 
 clogs ! " or " Mrs. Bracegirdle's pattens ! " but now, 
 " Mrs. Barry's chair " was as familiar a sound as 
 " Mrs. Oldfield's." If she was not invariably wise 
 in the stewardship of her money, some portions were 
 expended in a judicious manner creditable to her 
 taste. At the sale of Betterton's effects she pur- 
 chased the picture of Shakespeare which Betterton 
 bought from Davenant, who had purchased it from 
 some of the players after the theatres had been 
 closed by authority. Subsequently Mrs. Barry sold 
 this relic for forty guineas to a Mr. Keck, whose 
 daughter carried it with her as part of her dowry 
 when she married Mr. Nicoll, of Colney Hatch. 
 Their daughter and heiress, in her turn, took the 
 portrait and a large fortune with her to her husband, 
 the third Duke of Chandos ; and, finally, Mrs. 
 Barry's effigy of Shakespeare passed with another 
 bride into another house, Lady Anne Brydges, the 
 daughter of the duke and duchess, carrying it with 
 her to Stowe on her marriage with the Marquis of 
 Buckingham, subsequently Duke of Buckingham and
 
 ELIZABETH BARRY 143 
 
 Chandos. The Chandos portrait of the great dram- 
 atist is thus descended. 
 
 Mrs. Barry, like many other eminent members of 
 her profession, was famous for the way in which she 
 uttered some single expression in the play. The 
 " Look there ! " of Spranger Barry, as he passed the 
 body of Rutland, always moved the house to tears. 
 So, the " Remember twelve ! " of Mrs. Siddons's Bel- 
 videra ; the " Well, as you guess ! " of Edmund 
 Kean's Richard ; the " Qu'en dis tu ? " of Talma's 
 Auguste; the "Je crois ! " of Rachel's Pauline; the 
 "Je vois ! " of Mile. Mars's Valerie, were "points" 
 which never failed to excite an audience to enthusi- 
 asm. But there were two phrases with which Mrs. 
 Barry could still more deeply move an audience. 
 When, in "The Orphan," she pronounced the words, 
 " Ah, poor Castalio ! " not only did the audience 
 weep, but the actress herself shed tears abundantly. 
 The other phrase was in a scene of Banks's puling trag- 
 edy, the " Unhappy Favourite, or the Earl of Essex." 
 In that play Mrs. Barry represented Queen Elizabeth, 
 and that with such effect that it was currently said 
 the people of her day knew more of Queen Eliza- 
 beth from her impersonation of the character than 
 they did from history. The apparently common- 
 place remark, " What mean my grieving subjects ? " 
 was invested by her with such emphatic grace and 
 dignity as to call up murmurs of approbation which 
 swelled into thunders of applause. Mary of Modena 
 testified her admiration by bestowing on the mimic 
 queen the wedding - dress Mary herself had worn 
 when she was united to James II., and the mantle 
 borne by her at her coronation. Thus attired, the
 
 144 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 queen of the hour represented the Elizabeth, with 
 which enthusiastic crowds became so much more 
 familiar than they were with Elizabeth of history. 
 But this "solemn and august" tragedian could also 
 command laughter, and make a whole house joyous 
 by the exercise of another branch of her vocation. 
 " In free comedy," says Aston, " she was alert, easy, 
 and genteel, pleasant in her face and action, filling 
 the stage with variety of gesture. So entirely did 
 she surrender herself to the influences of the char- 
 acters she represented, that in stage dialogues she 
 often turned pale or flushed red, as varying passions 
 prompted. 
 
 With the audience she was never for a moment 
 out of favour, after she had made her merit apparent. 
 They acknowledged no greater actress, with the 
 single exception of Mrs. Betterton in the character 
 of Lady Macbeth. Nevertheless, on and behind the 
 stage, Mrs. Barry's supremacy was sometimes ques- 
 tioned, and her commands disobeyed. When she 
 was about to play Roxana to the Statira of Mrs. 
 Boutell, in Nat. Lee's " Rival Queens, or the Death 
 of Alexander the Great," she selected from the 
 wardrobe a certain veil which was claimed by Mrs. 
 Boutell as of right belonging to her. The property- 
 man thought so too, and handed the veil to the last 
 named lady. His award was reasonable, for she 
 was the original Statira, having played the part to 
 the matchless Alexander of Hart, and to the glowing 
 Roxana of the fascinating Marshall. I fear, however, 
 that the lady was not moderate in her victory, and 
 that by flaunting the trophy too frequently before 
 the eyes of the rival queen, the daughter of Darius
 
 ELIZABETH BARRY 145 
 
 exasperated too fiercely her Persian rival in the heart 
 of Alexander. The rage and dissension set down for 
 them in the play were, at all events, not simulated. 
 The quarrel went on increasing in intensity from the 
 first, and culminated in the gardens of Semiramis. 
 When Roxana seized on her detested enemy there, 
 and the supreme struggle took place, Mrs. Barry, 
 with the exclamation of, "Die, sorceress, die! and 
 all my wrongs die with thee ! " sent her polished 
 dagger right through the stiff armour of Mrs. 
 Boutell's stays. The consequences were a scratch 
 and a shriek, but there was no great harm done. 
 An investigation followed, and some mention was 
 made of a real jealousy existing in Mrs. Barry's 
 breast in reference to an admirer of lower rank than 
 Alexander, lured from her feet by the little, flute- 
 voiced Boutell. The deed itself was, however, mildly 
 construed, and Mrs. Barry was believed when she 
 declared that she had been carried away by the illu- 
 sion and excitement of the scene. We shall see this 
 same scene repeated, with similar stage effects, by 
 Mrs. Woffington and Mrs. Bellamy. 
 
 If there were a lover to add bitterness to the 
 quarrel engendered by the veil, Mrs. Barry might 
 have well spared one of whom she possessed so 
 many. Without being positively a transcendent 
 beauty, her attractions were confessed by many an 
 Antony from the country, who thought their world 
 of acres well lost for the sake of a little sunshine 
 from the eyes of this vanquishing, imperious, ban- 
 queting, heart and purse destroying Cleopatra. 
 There were two classes of men who made epigrams, 
 or caused others to make them against her, namely,
 
 146 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 the adorers on whom she ceased to smile, and those 
 on whom she refused to smile at all. The coffee- 
 house poetry which these perpetrated against her is 
 the reverse of pleasant to read ; but, under the pro- 
 tection of such a wit as Etherege, or such a fine 
 gentleman as Rochester, Mrs. Barry cared little for 
 her puny assailants. 
 
 Tom Brown taxed her with mercenary feelings ; 
 but against that and the humour of writers who 
 affected intimate acquaintance with her affairs of 
 the heart and purse, and as intimate a knowledge 
 of the amount which Sir George Etherege and Lord 
 Rochester bequeathed to their respective daughters, 
 of whom Mrs. Barry was the mother, she was armed. 
 Neither of these children survived the "famous 
 actress." She herself hardly survived Betterton, 
 at least on the stage. The day after the great 
 tragedian's final appearance, Mrs. Barry trod the 
 stage for the last time. The place was the old Hay- 
 market, the play the " Spanish Friar," in which she 
 enacted the queen. And I can picture to myself 
 the effect of the famous passage when the queen 
 impetuously betrays her overwhelming love. " Haste, 
 my Teresa, haste ; and call him back ! " " Prince 
 Bertram ? " asks the confidante ; and then came the 
 full burst, breaking through all restraint, and reveal- 
 ing a woman who seemed bathed in love : " Torris- 
 mond ! There is no other he ! " 
 
 Mrs. Barry took no formal leave of the stage, but 
 quietly withdrew from St. Mary-le-Savoy, in the 
 Strand, to the pleasant village of Acton. Mrs. 
 Porter, Mrs. Rogers, Mrs. Knight, and Mrs. Brad- 
 shaw succeeded to her theatrical dominion, by par-
 
 ELIZABETH BARRY H7 
 
 tition of her characters. If tragedy lost its queen, 
 Acton gained a wealthy lady. Her professional 
 salary had not been large, but her " benefits " were 
 very productive ; they who admired the actress or 
 who loved the woman, alike pouring out gold and 
 jewels in her lap. It was especially for her that 
 performers' benefits were first devised. Authors 
 alone had hitherto profited by such occasions, but 
 in recognition of her merit, King James commanded 
 one to be given in her behalf, and what was com- 
 menced as a compliment soon passed into a custom. 
 
 In a little more than three years from the date 
 when the curtain fell before her for the last time, 
 Elizabeth Barry died. Brief resting season after 
 such years of toil ; but, perhaps, sufficient for better 
 ends after a career, too, of unbridled pleasure ! 
 "This great actress," says Gibber, "dy'd of a fever, 
 toward the latter years of Queen Anne ; the year I 
 have forgot, but perhaps you will recollect it, by an 
 expression that fell from her in blank verse, in her 
 last hours, when she was delirious, viz. : 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! and so they make us lords, by dozens ! ' " 
 
 This, however, does not settle the year so easily as 
 Colley thought. In December, 1711, Queen Anne, 
 by an unprecedented act, created twelve new peers, 
 to enable the measures of her Tory ministers to be 
 carried in the Upper House. Mrs. Barry died two 
 years later, on the 7th of November, 1713, and the 
 utterance of the words quoted above only indicates 
 that her wandering memory was then dealing with 
 incidents full two years old.
 
 148 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 They who would see how Mrs. Barry looked living, 
 have only to consult Kneller's grand picture, in which 
 she is represented with her fine hair drawn back 
 from her forehead, the face full, fair, and rippling 
 with intellect. The eyes are inexpressibly beautiful. 
 Of all her living beauty, living frailty, and living 
 intelligence, there remains but this presentment. 
 
 It was customary to compare Mrs. Barry with 
 French actresses ; but it seems to me that the only 
 French actress with whom Mrs. Barry may be safely 
 compared is Mademoiselle, or, as she was called 
 with glorious distinction, "the ChampmesleV' This 
 French lady was the original Hermione, Berenice, 
 Monimia, and Phaedre. These were written ex- 
 pressly for her by Racine, who trained her exactly 
 as Rochester did Elizabeth Barry, to some glory 
 on the stage, and to some infamy off it. La Champ- 
 mesl6, however, was more tenderly treated by society 
 at large than the less fortunate daughter of an old 
 royalist colonel. The latter actress was satirised ; 
 the former was eulogised by the wits, and she was 
 not even anathematised by French mothers. When 
 La Champmesl6 was ruining the young Marquis de 
 Sevigne, his mother wrote proudly of the actress 
 as her "daughter-in-law!" as if to have a son hur- 
 ried to perdition by so resplendent and destructive 
 a genius was a matter of exultation ! 
 
 Having sketched the outline of Mrs. Barry's career, 
 I proceed to notice some of her able, though less 
 illustrious, colleagues.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 "THEIR FIRST APPEARANCE ON THIS STAGE" 
 
 ON the i6th November, 1682, the United Com- 
 pany, the flower of both houses, opened their season 
 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The theatre in 
 Dorset Gardens was only occasionally used ; and from 
 1682 to 1695 there was but one theatre in London. 
 
 Betterton and Mrs. Barry were, of course, at the 
 head of this company, to which there came some 
 accessions of note ; among others, Mrs. Percival, 
 better known as Mrs. Mountfort, and finally as Mrs. 
 Verbruggen. A greater accession was that of the 
 charming Mrs. Bracegirdle. The third lady was Mrs. 
 Jordan, a name to be made celebrated by a later and 
 greater actress, who had no legal claim to it. 
 
 Of the new actors, some only modestly laid the 
 foundations of their glory in this company. Chief of 
 these was Colley Cibber, who, in 1691, played Sir 
 Gentle's Servant in Southerne's "Sir Anthony 
 Love," had a part of nine lines in Chapman's " Bussy 
 d'Amboise," and of seventeen, as Sigismond in 
 Powell's "Alphonso." Bowen, too, began with 
 coachmen, and similar small parts, while that prince 
 of the droll fellows of his time, Pinkethman, com- 
 menced his career with a tailor's part, of six lines in 
 length, in Shadwell's "Volunteers." Among the 
 
 149
 
 150 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 other new actors were Mountfort, Norris, and Dog- 
 gett, with Verbruggen (or Alexander, as he some- 
 times called himself, from the character which he 
 loved to play) ; Gillow, Carlisle, Hodgson, and Peer. 
 
 Amid these names, that of Mrs. Mountfort stands 
 out the most brilliantly. Her portrait has been so 
 exquisitely limned by Colley Gibber, that we see her 
 as she lived, and moved, and spoke. 
 
 " Mrs. Mountfort was mistress of more variety of 
 humour than I ever knew in any one actress. This 
 variety, too, was attended with an equal vivacity, 
 which made her excellent in characters extremely 
 different. As she was naturally a pleasant mimic, 
 she had the skill to make that talent useful on the 
 stage. Where the elocution is round, distinct, voluble, 
 and various, as Mrs. Mountfort's was, the mimic there 
 is a great assistance to the actor. Nothing, though 
 ever so barren, if within the bounds of nature, could 
 be flat in her hands. She gave many heightening 
 touches to characters but coldly written, and often 
 made an author vain of his work, that, in itself, had 
 but little merit. She was so fond of humour, in what 
 low part soever to be found, that she would make no 
 scruple of defacing her fair form to come heartily 
 into it, for when she was eminent in several desirable 
 characters of wit and humour, in higher life, she 
 would be in as much fancy, when descending into the 
 antiquated Abigail of Fletcher, as when triumphing 
 in all the airs and vain graces of a fine lady ; a merit 
 that few actresses care for. In a play of Durfey's, 
 now forgotten, called ' The Western Lass,' which 
 part she acted, she transformed her whole being 
 body, shape, voice, language, look, and features
 
 "THEIR FIRST APPEARANCE ON THIS STAGE" 151 
 
 into almost another animal, with a strong Devonshire 
 dialect, a broad laughing voice, a poking head, round 
 shoulders, an unconceiving eye, and the most bedizen- 
 ing, dowdy dress that ever covered the untrained 
 limbs of a Joan Trot. To have seen her here, you 
 would have thought it impossible that the same could 
 ever have been recovered to, what was as easy to 
 her, the gay, the lively, and the desirable. Nor was 
 her humour limited to her sex, for while her shape 
 permitted, she was a more adroit, pretty fellow than 
 is usually seen upon the stage. Her easy air, action, 
 mien, and gesture, quite changed from the coif to the 
 cocked-hat and cavalier in fashion. People were so 
 fond of seeing her a man that when the part of 
 Bayes, in 'The Rehearsal,' had for some time lain 
 dormant, she was desired to take it up, which I have 
 seen her act with all the true coxcombly spirit and 
 humour that the sufficiency of the character required. 
 " But what found most employment for her whole 
 various excellence at once was the part of Melantha, 
 in ' Marriage & la Mode.' Melantha is as finished an 
 impertinent as ever fluttered in a drawing-room, and 
 seems to contain the most complete system of female 
 foppery that could possibly be crowded into the tor- 
 tured form of a fine lady. Her language, dress, 
 motion, manners, soul, and body are in a continual 
 hurry to be something more than is necessary or 
 commendable. The first ridiculous airs that break 
 from her are upon a gallant, never seen before, who 
 delivers her a letter from her father, recommending 
 him to her good graces, as an honourable lover. 
 Here, now, one would think that she might naturally 
 show a little of the sex's decent reserve, though never
 
 1 52 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 so slightly covered. No, sir! not a tittle of it! 
 Modesty is the virtue of a poor-souled country 
 gentlewoman. She is too much a court lady to be 
 under so vulgar a confusion. She reads the letter, 
 therefore, with a careless, dropping lip, and an erected 
 brow, humming it hastily over, as if she were im- 
 patient to outgo her father's commands, by making 
 a complete conquest of him at once ; and that the 
 letter might not embarrass her attack, crack ! she 
 crumbles it at once into her palm, and pours upon 
 him her whole artillery of airs, eyes, and motion. 
 Down goes her dainty, diving body to the ground, 
 as if she were sinking under the conscious load of 
 her own attractions ; then launches into a flood of 
 fine language and compliment, still playing her chest 
 forward in fifty falls and risings, like a swan upon 
 waving water ; and, to complete her impertinence, 
 she is so rapidly fond of her own wit that she will 
 not give her lover leave to praise it. Silent assenting 
 bows, and vain endeavours to speak, are all the share 
 of the conversation he is admitted to, which at last 
 he is relieved from by her engagement to half a score 
 visits, which she swims from him to make, with a 
 promise to return in a twinkling." 
 
 Happy Mrs. Mountfort, whom, as actress and 
 woman, Gibber has thus made live for ever! As 
 Mrs. Percival, she was the original representative of 
 Nell in the piece now known as "The Devil to 
 Pay ; " as Mrs. Mountfort, Belinda, in the " Old 
 Bachelor ; " and as Mrs. Verbruggen, Charlotte 
 Welldon, in " Oronooko ; " Lady Lurewell, in the 
 " Constant Couple ; " and Bizarre, in the " Incon- 
 stant." She died in 1703.
 
 "THEIR FIRST APPEARANCE ON THIS STAGE" 153 
 
 In some respects Mrs. Bracegirdle, who was on the 
 stage from 1680 to 1707, and subsequently lived in 
 easy retirement till 1748, was even superior to Mrs. 
 Mountfort. Mrs. Barry saw her early promise, and 
 encouraged her in her first essays. In her peculiar 
 line she was supreme, till the younger and irresistible 
 talent of Mrs. Oldfield brought about her resignation. 
 Unlike either of these brilliant actresses, she was 
 exposed to sarcasm only on account of her excellent 
 private character. Platonic friendships she did culti- 
 vate ; with those, slander dealt severely enough ; and 
 writers like Gildon were found to declare, that they 
 believed no more in the innocency of such friendships 
 than they believed in John Mandeville ; while others, 
 like Tom Brown, only gave her credit for a discreet 
 decorum. Gibber, more generous, declares that her 
 virtuous discretion rendered her the delight of the 
 town ; that whole audiences were in love with her, 
 because of her youth, her cheerful gaiety, her musi- 
 cal voice, and her happy graces of manner. Her 
 form was perfect. Gibber says, " She had no greater 
 claims to beauty than what the most desirable bru- 
 nette might pretend to." Other contemporaries 
 notice her dark brown hair and eyebrows, her dark, 
 sparkling eyes, the face from which the blush of 
 emotion spread in a flood of rosy beauty over her 
 neck, and the intelligence and expression which are 
 superior to mere beauty. She so enthralled her 
 audience that, it is quaintly said, she never made 
 an exit without the audience feeling as if they had 
 moulded their faces into an imitation of hers. Then 
 she was as good, practically, as she was beautiful ; 
 and the poor of the neighbourhood in which she
 
 i$4 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 resided looked upon her as a beneficent divin- 
 ity. 
 
 Her performance of Statira was considered a justi- 
 fication of the frantic love of such an Alexander as 
 Lee's ; and, " when she acted Millamant, all the 
 faults, follies, and affectation of that agreeable 
 tyrant were venially melted down into so many 
 charms and attractions of a conscious beauty." 
 Young gentlemen of the town pronounced them- 
 selves in tender but unrequited love with her. Jack, 
 Lord Lovelace, sought a return for his ardent hom- 
 age, and obtained not what he sought. Authors 
 wrote characters for her, and poured out their own 
 passion through the medium of her adorers in the 
 comedy. For her, Congreve composed his Araminta 
 and his Cynthia, his Angelica, his Almeria, and the 
 Millamant, in the " Way of the World," which Cib- 
 ber praises so efficiently. That this dramatist was 
 the only one whose homage was well received and 
 presence ever welcome to her, there is no dispute. 
 When a report was abroad that they were about to 
 marry, the minor poets hailed the promised union 
 of wit and beauty ; and even Congreve, not in the 
 best taste, illustrated her superiority to himself, when 
 he wrote of her 
 
 " Pious Belinda goes to prayers 
 Whene'er I ask the favour, 
 Yet the tender fool's in tears 
 When she thinks I'd leave her. 
 
 " Would I were free from this restraint, 
 
 Or else had power to win her; 
 Would she could make of me a saint, 
 Or I of her a sinner."
 
 "THEIR FIRST APPEARANCE ON THIS STAGE" 155 
 
 The most singular testimony ever rendered to this 
 virtue occurred on the occasion when Dorset, Devon- 
 shire, Halifax, and other peers, were making of that 
 virtue a subject of eulogy, over a bottle. Halifax 
 remarked, they might do something better than 
 praise her ; and thereon he put down two hundred 
 guineas, which the contributions of the company 
 raised to eight hundred, and this sum was pre- 
 sented to the lady, as a homage to the rectitude of 
 her private character. 
 
 Whether she accepted this tribute, I do not know ; 
 but I know that she declined another from Lord 
 Burlington, who had long loved her in vain. " One 
 day," says Walpole, "he sent her a present of some 
 fine old china. She told the servant he had made a 
 mistake ; that it was true the letter was for her, but 
 the china for his lady, to whom he must carry it. 
 Lord ! the countess was so full of gratitude, when her 
 husband came home to dinner." 
 
 Mrs. Bracegirdle lived to pass the limit of four- 
 score, and to the last was visited by much of the wit, 
 the worth, and some of the folly of the town. On 
 one occasion, a group of her visitors were discussing 
 the merits of Garrick, whom she had not seen, and 
 Gibber spoke disparagingly of his Bayes, preferring 
 in that part his own pert and vivacious son, The- 
 ophilus. The old actress tapped Colley with her 
 fan. " Come, come, Gibber," she remarked ; " tell me 
 if there is not something like envy in your character 
 of this young gentleman. The actor who pleases 
 everybody must be a man of merit." Colley smiled, 
 tapped his box, took a pinch, and, catching the 
 generosity of the lady, replied : " Faith, Bracey,
 
 156 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 I believe you are right ; the young fellow is 
 clever!" 
 
 Between 1682 and 1695, few actors were of greater 
 note than luckless Will Mountfort, of whose violent 
 death the beauty of Mrs. Bracegirdle was the unin- 
 tentional fault. Handsome Will was the efficient 
 representative of fops who did not forget that they 
 were gentlemen. So graceful, so ardent, so winning 
 as a lover, actresses enjoyed the sight of him pleading 
 at their feet. In the younger tragic characters, he 
 was equally effective. His powers of mimicry won 
 for him the not too valuable patronage of Judge 
 Jeffreys, to gratify whom, and the lord mayor and 
 minor city magnates, in 1685, Mountfort pleaded 
 before them in a feigned cause, in which, says Jacobs, 
 "he aped all the great lawyers of the age in their 
 tone of voice, and in their action and gesture of body," 
 to the delight of his hearers. On the stage he was 
 one of the most natural of actors ; and even Queen 
 Mary was constrained to allow that, disgusted as she 
 was with Mrs. Behn's "Rover," she could not but 
 admire the grace, ease, intelligence, and genius of 
 Mountfort, who played the dissolute hero, sang as 
 well as he spoke, and danced with stately dignity. 
 But poor Will was only the hero of a brief hour ; and 
 the inimitable original of Sir Courtly Nice was mur- 
 dered by two of the most consummate villains of the 
 order of gentlemen then in town. 
 
 Charles, Lord Mohun, had, a few years previous to 
 this occurrence, been tried with the Earl of Warwick 
 for a murder, arising out of a coffee-house brawl ; on 
 being acquitted by the House of Lords, he solemnly 
 promised never to get into such a difficulty again.
 
 "THEIR FIRST APPEARANCE ON THIS STAGE" 137 
 
 But one Captain Richard Hill, being in " love " with 
 Mrs. Bracegirdle, who heartily despised him, wanted 
 a villain's assistance in carrying off the beautiful 
 actress, and found the man and the aid he needed, in 
 Lord Mohun. In Buckingham Court, off the Strand, 
 where the captain lodged, the conspirators laid their 
 plans ; and learning that Mrs. Bracegirdle, with her 
 mother and brother, was to sup one evening at the 
 house of a friend, Mr. Page, in Princes Street, Drury 
 Lane, they hired six soldiers emissaries always 
 then to be had for such work to assist in seizing 
 her and carrying her off in a carriage, stationed near 
 Mr. Page's house. About ten at night, of the Qth of 
 December, 1 692, the attempt was made ; but what 
 with the lady's screams, the resistance of the friend 
 and brother, and the gathering of an excited mob, 
 it failed ; and a strange compromise was made, 
 whereby Lord Mohun and Hill were allowed to unite 
 in escorting her home to her house in Howard Street, 
 Strand. In that street lived also Will Mountfort, 
 against whom the captain uttered such threats, in 
 Mrs. Bracegirdle's hearing, that she, finding that my 
 lord and the captain remained in the street, the 
 latter with a drawn sword in his hand, and both of 
 them occasionally drinking canary, sent to Mrs. 
 Mountfort to warn her husband, who was from home, 
 to look to his safety. Warned, but not alarmed, 
 honest Will, who loved his wife and respected Mrs. 
 Bracegirdle, came round from Norfolk Street, saluted 
 Lord Mohun (who embraced him, according to the 
 then fashion of men), and said a word or two to his 
 lordship, not complimentary to the character of Hill. 
 Thence, from the latter, words, a blow, and a pass
 
 158 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 of his sword through Mountfort's body, which the 
 poor actor, as he lay dying on the floor of his own 
 dining-room, declared was given by Hill before 
 Mountfort could draw his sword. The captain fled 
 from England, but my lord, surrendering to the 
 watchmen of the Duchy of Lancaster, was tried by 
 his peers, fourteen of whom pronounced him guilty 
 of murder ; but as above threescore gave a different 
 verdict, Mohun lived on till he and the Duke of Ham- 
 ilton hacked one another to death in that savage 
 butchery the famous duel in Hyde Park. 
 
 Mountfort, at the age of thirty-three, and with 
 some reputation as the author of half a dozen dramas, 
 was carried to the burying-ground of St. Clement's 
 Danes, where his remains rest with those of Lowen, 
 one of the original actors of Shakespeare's plays, 
 Tom Otway, and Nat. Lee. His fair and clever 
 widow became soon the wife of Verbruggen, a 
 rough diamond, a wild, untaught, yet not an un- 
 natural actor. So natural indeed was he, that Lord 
 Halifax took Oronooko from Powell, who was origi- 
 nally cast for it, and gave it to Verbruggen ; such was 
 the power of lord chamberlains ! He could touch 
 tenderly the finer feelings, as well as excite the wilder 
 emotions of the heart. Powell, on the other hand, 
 was a less impassioned player, who would appear to 
 have felt more than he made his audience feel ; for 
 in the original Spectator, No. 290, February, 1712, 
 Powell " begs the public to believe, that if he pauses 
 long in Orestes, he has not forgotten his part, but is 
 only overcome at the sentiment." 
 
 Verbruggen died in 1 708. Among his many origi- 
 nal characters * were Oronooko, Bajazet, Altamont,
 
 "THEIR FIRST APPEARANCE ON THIS STAGE" 159 
 
 and Sullen. He survived his widow about five years. 
 I think if she loved Will Mountfort, she stood in some 
 awe of fiery Jack Verbruggen ; who, in his turn, seems 
 to have had more of a rough courtesy than a warm 
 affection for her. " For he would often say," re- 
 marks Anthony Aston, " ' D me ! though I don't 
 
 much value my wife, yet nobody shall affront her ! ' 
 and his sword was drawn on the least occasion, which 
 was much in fashion in the latter end of King Will- 
 iam's reign." And let me add here, that an actor's 
 sword was sometimes drawn for the king. James 
 Carlisle, a respectable player, whose comedy, " The 
 Fortune Hunters," was well received in 1689, was 
 not so tempted by success as to prefer authorship to 
 soldiership, in behalf of a great cause. When the 
 threatened destruction of the Irish Protestants was 
 commenced with the siege of Londonderry, Carlisle 
 entered King William's army, serving in Ireland. In 
 1691 he was in the terrible fray in the morass at 
 Aghrim, under Ginkell, but immediately led by Tal- 
 mash. In the twilight of that July day, the Jacobite 
 general, St. Ruth, and the poor player from Drury 
 Lane, were lying among the dead ; and there James 
 Carlisle was buried, with the remainder of the six 
 hundred slain on the victor's side, before their surviv- 
 ing companions in arms marched westward. 
 
 Carlisle's fellow actor, Bowen, was a "low come- 
 dian " of some talent, and more conceit. A curious 
 paragraph in the Post-Boy, for November 16, 1700, 
 shows that he left the stage for a time, and under 
 singular circumstances. The paragraph runs thus : 
 
 "We hear that this day, Mr. Bowen, the late 
 famous comedian at the new playhouse, being con-
 
 160 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 vinced by Mr. Collier's book against the stage, and 
 satisfied that a shopkeeper's life was the readiest way 
 to heaven of the two, opens a cane shop, next door to 
 the King's Head Tavern, in Middle Row, Holborn, 
 where it is not questioned but all manner of canes, 
 toys, and other curiosities, will be obtained at reason- 
 able rates. This sudden change is admired at, as well 
 as the reasons which induced him to leave such a 
 profitable employ; but the most judicious conclude 
 it is the effect of a certain person's good nature, 
 who has more compassion for his soul than for his 
 own." 
 
 Bowen was not absent from the stage more than 
 a year. He was so jealous of his reputation, that 
 when he had been driven to fury by the assertion 
 that Johnson played Jacomo, in the " Libertine," 
 better than he did, and by the emphatic confirmation 
 of the assertion by Quin, he fastened a quarrel on 
 the latter, got him in a room in a tavern, alone, set 
 his back to the door, drew his sword, and assailed 
 Quin with such blind fury, that he killed himself by 
 falling on Quin's weapon. The dying Irishman, how- 
 ever, generously acquitted his adversary of all blame, 
 and the greater actor, after trial, returned to his duty, 
 having innocently killed, but not convinced, poor 
 Bowen, who naturally preferred his Jacomo to that 
 of Johnson. 
 
 Peer, later in life, came to grief also, but in a dif- 
 ferent way. The spare man was famous for two 
 parts : the Apothecary, in " Romeo and Juliet," and 
 the actor who humbly speaks the prologue to the 
 play in " Hamlet." These parts he played excel- 
 lently well. Nature had made him for them; but
 
 "THEIR FIRST APPEARANCE ON THIS STAGE" 161 
 
 she was not constant to her meek and lean favourite ; 
 for Peer grew fat, and being unable to act any other 
 character with equal effect, he lost his vocation, and 
 he died, lingeringly, of grief, in 1713, when he had 
 passed threescore years and ten. He had been prop- 
 erty-man also, and in this capacity the theatre owed 
 him, at the time of his decease, among other trifling 
 sums, "threepence, for blood in ' Macbeth.' ' 
 
 Norris, or "Jubilee Dicky," was a player of an 
 odd, formal, little figure, and a squeaking voice. He 
 was a capital comic actor, and owed his by-name 
 to his success in playing Dicky in the " Constant 
 Couple." So great was this success, that his sons 
 seemed to derive value from it, and were announced 
 as the sons of Jubilee Dicky. He is said to have 
 acted Cato, and other tragic characters, in a serio- 
 burlesque manner. He was the original Scrub and 
 Don Lopez, in the " Wonder," and died about the 
 year 1733. 
 
 Doggett, who was before the public from 1691 to 
 1713, and who died in 1721, was a Dublin man a 
 failure in his native city, but in London a deserved 
 favourite, for his original and natural comic powers. 
 He always acted Shylock as a ferociously comic char- 
 acter. Congreve discerned his talent, and wrote for 
 him Fondlewife in the "Old Bachelor," Sir Paul 
 Pliant in the " Double Dealer," and the very different 
 part of Ben in " Love for Love." This little, lively, 
 cheerful fellow, was a conscientious actor. Some- 
 what illiterate, he spelt " whole " phonetically, with- 
 out the " w," he was a gentleman in his acts and 
 bearing. He was prudent, too, and when he retired 
 from partnership in Drury Lane Theatre, with Cib-
 
 i6a THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 her and Wilks (from 1709 to 1712), on the admis- 
 sion of Booth, which displeased him, he was considered 
 worth ;i,ooo a year. The consciousness of his 
 value, and his own independence of character, gave 
 some trouble to managers and lord chamberlains. 
 On one occasion, having left Drury Lane at some 
 offence given, he went to Norwich, whence he was 
 brought up to London, under my lord's warrant. 
 Dogget lived luxuriously on the road, at the cham- 
 berlain's expense, and when he came to town, Chief 
 Justice Holt liberated him, on some informality in 
 the procedure. 
 
 Little errors of temper, and extreme carefulness in 
 guarding his own interests, are now forgotten. Of 
 his strong political feeling we still possess a trace. 
 Doggett was a staunch Whig. The accession of the 
 house of Brunswick dated from a first of August. 
 On that day, in 1716, and under George I., Doggett 
 gave " an orange-coloured livery, with a badge, repre- 
 senting Liberty," to be rowed for by six watermen, 
 whose apprenticeship had expired during the preced- 
 ing year. He left funds for the same race to be 
 rowed for annually, from London Bridge to Chelsea, 
 " on the same day for ever." The match still takes 
 place, with modifications caused by changes on and 
 about the river ; but the winners of the money-prizes, 
 now delivered at Fishmongers' Hall, have yet to be 
 thankful for that prudence in Doggett, which was 
 sneered at by his imprudent contemporaries. 
 
 Doggett never took liberties with an audience ; 
 Pinkethman was much addicted to that bad habit. 
 He would insert nonsense of his own, appeal to the 
 gallery, and delight in their support, and the con-
 
 fusion into which the other actors on the stage were 
 thrown ; but the joke grew stale at last, and the 
 offender was brought to his senses by loud disappro- 
 bation. He did not lose his self-possession ; but as- 
 suming a penitent air, with a submissive glance at 
 the audience, he said in a stage aside, "Odso, I 
 believe I have been in the wrong here ! " This 
 cleverly made confession brought down a round of 
 applause, and " Pin key " made his exit, corrected, 
 but not disgraced. Another trait of his stage life is 
 worthy of notice. He had been remarkable for his 
 reputation as a speaking Harlequin, in the " Emperor 
 of the Moon." His wit, audacity, emphasis, and 
 point delighted the critics, who thought that " ex- 
 pression " would be more perfect if the actor laid 
 aside the inevitable mask of Harlequin. Pinketh- 
 man did so ; but all expression was thereby lost. It 
 was no longer the saucy Harlequin that seemed 
 speaking. Pinkey, so impudent on all other occa- 
 sions, was uneasy and feeble on this, and his audac- 
 ity and vivacity only returned on his again assuming 
 the sable vizard. 
 
 Pinkethman was entirely the architect of his own 
 fortune. He made his way by talent and industry. 
 He established the Richmond Theatre, and there 
 was no booth at Greenwich, Richmond, or Mayfair, 
 so well patronised as his. " He's the darling of 
 Fortunatus," says Downes, "and has gained more 
 in theatres and fairs in twelve years than those who 
 have tugged at the oar of acting these fifty." 
 
 After the division of the company into two, in 
 1695, the following new actors appeared between 
 that period and the close of the century. At Drury
 
 1 64 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Lane Hildebrand Horden, Mrs. Gibber, Johnson, 
 Bullock, Mills, Wilks ; and, as if the century should 
 expire, reckoning a new glory, Mrs. Oldfield. At 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields, Thurmond, Scudamore, Ver- 
 bruggen, who joined from Drury Lane, leaving his 
 clever wife there, Pack ; and, that this house might 
 boast a glory something like that enjoyed by its 
 rival, in Mrs. Oldfield, in 170x3 Booth made his 
 first appearance, with a success, the significance 
 of which was recognised and welcomed by the dis- 
 cerning and generous Betterton. 
 
 Mrs. Oldfield, Wilks, and Booth, like Colley Cib- 
 ber, though they appeared toward the close of the 
 seventeenth, really belong to the eighteenth century, 
 and I shall defer noticing them till my readers and I 
 arrive at that latter period. The rest will require 
 but a few words. Young Horden was a handsome 
 and promising actor, who died of a brawl at the Rose 
 Tavern, Covent Garden. He and two or three com- 
 rades were quaffing their wine, and laughing at the 
 bar, when some fine gentlemen, in an adjacent room, 
 affecting to be disturbed by the gaiety of the players, 
 rudely ordered them to be quiet. The actors re- 
 turned an answer which brought blood to the cheek, 
 fierce words to the lips, hand to the sword, and a re- 
 sulting fight, in which the handsome Hildebrand was 
 slain, by a Captain Burgess. The captain was carried 
 to the Gate-house, from which, says the Protestant 
 Mercury, he was rescued at night, "by a dozen or 
 more of fellows with short clubs and pistols." So 
 ended, in 1696, Hildebrand Horden, not without 
 the sympathy of loving women, who went in masks, 
 and some without the vizard, to look upon and weep
 
 "THEIR FIRST APPEARANCE ON THIS STAGE" 165 
 
 over his handsome, shrouded corse. A couple of 
 paragraphs in Luttrell's Diary conclude Horden's 
 luckless story: "Saturday, i/th October, Mr. John 
 Pitts was tried at the session for killing Mr. Hor- 
 den, the player, and acquitted, he being no ways 
 accessory thereto, more than being in company when 
 'twas done." On Tuesday, 3Oth November, 1697, 
 the diarist writes : " Captain Burgess, who killed Mr. 
 Horden, the player, has obtained his Majesty's 
 pardon." 
 
 Of Mrs. Gibber, it can only be said that she was 
 the wife of a great, and of Bullock, that he was the 
 father of a good, actor. To Johnson no more praise 
 can be awarded than to Bullock. William Mills de- 
 serves a word or two more of notice than these last. 
 He was on the stage from 1696 to 1737, and though 
 only a " solid " actor, he excelled Gibber in Corvino, 
 in Jonson's " Volpone ; " surpassed Smith in the 
 part of Pierre, and was only second to Quin, in Vol- 
 pone himself. His Ventidius, in Dryden's tragedy, 
 "All for Love," to Booth's Anthony, is praised for 
 its natural display of the true spirit of a rough and 
 generous soldier. Of his original parts, the chief 
 were Jack Stanmore, in " Oronooko ; " Aimwell, in 
 the " Beaux' Stratagem ; " Charles, in the " Busy 
 Body ; " Pylades, in the " Distressed Mother ; " 
 Colonel Briton, in the " Wonder ; " Zanga, in the 
 " Revenge ; " and Manly, in the " Provoked Hus- 
 band." That some of these were beyond his powers 
 is certain ; but he owed his being cast for them to 
 the friendship of Wilks, when the latter was man- 
 ager. To a like cause may be ascribed the circum- 
 stance of his having the same salary as Betterton,
 
 1 66 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 per week, and i for his wife ; but this was not 
 till after Betterton's death. 
 
 At Lincoln's Inn Fields, Thurmond, though a re- 
 spectable actor, failed to shake any of the public con- 
 fidence in Betterton. Of Scudamore, I have already 
 spoken. Pack was a vivacious comic actor, whose 
 "line" is well indicated in the characters of Brass, 
 Marplot, and Lissardo, of which he was the original 
 representative. He withdrew from the stage in 1721, 
 a bachelor; and, in the meridian of life, opened a 
 tavern in Charing Cross. I have now named the 
 principal actors and actresses who first appeared, be- 
 tween the Restoration and the year 1701, Betterton 
 and Mrs. Barry being the noblest of the players of 
 that half-century ; Cibber, Booth, and Mrs. Oldfield, 
 the bright promises of the century to come. It is 
 disappointing, however, to find that in the very last 
 year of the seventeenth century " the grand jury of 
 Middlesex presented the two playhouses, and also the 
 bear-garden, as nuisances and riotous and disorderly 
 assemblies." So Luttrell writes, in December, 1700, 
 at which time, as contemporary accounts inform us, 
 the theatres were " pestered with tumblers, rope- 
 dancers, and dancing men and dogs from France." 
 Betterton was then in declining health, and appeared 
 only occasionally ; the houses, lacking other attrac- 
 tions, were ill attended, and public taste was stimu- 
 lated by offering the "fun of a fair," where Mrs. 
 Barry had drowned a whole house in tears. The 
 grand jury of Middlesex did not see that with rude 
 amusements the spectators grew rude too. The jury 
 succeeded in preventing playbills from being posted 
 in the city, and denounced the stage as a pastime
 
 "THEIR FIRST APPEARANCE ON THIS STAGE" 167 
 
 which led the way to murder. This last denunciation 
 was grounded on the fact that Sir Andrew Stanning 
 had been killed just before, on his way from the play- 
 house. When men wore swords and hot tempers, 
 these catastrophes were not infrequent. In 1682, a 
 coffee-house was sometimes turned into a shambles 
 by gentlemen calling the actors at the Duke's House 
 "papists." What was the cause of the fray in which 
 Sir Andrew fell, I do not know. Whatever it was, 
 he was run through the body by Mr. Cowlan ; and 
 that the latter took some unfair advantage is to be 
 supposed, since he was found guilty of murder, and 
 in December, 1700, was executed at Tyburn, with six 
 other malefactors, who, on the same day, in the New- 
 gate slang of the period, went Westward Ho ! 
 
 On the poor players fell all the disgrace ; but I 
 think I shall be able to show, in the next chapter, 
 that the fault lay rather with the poets. These, in 
 their turn, laid blame upon the public ; but it is the 
 poet's business to elevate, and not to pander to a low 
 taste. The foremost men of the tuneful brother- 
 hood, of the period from the Restoration to the end 
 of the century, have much to answer for in this 
 last respect.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE DRAMATIC POETS 
 Noble, gentle, and humble Authors 
 
 IT is a curious fact, that the number of dramatic 
 writers between the years 1659-1700, inclusive, 
 exceeds that of the actors. A glance at the following 
 list will show this : 
 
 Sir W. Davenant, Dryden, Porter, Mrs. Behn, Lee, 
 Cowley, Hon. James Howard, Shad well, Sir S. Tuke, 
 Sir R. Stapylton, Lord Broghill (Earl of Orrery), 
 Flecknoe, Sir George Etherege, Sir R. Howard, Lacy 
 (actor), Betterton (actor), Earl of Bristol, Duke of 
 Buckingham, Doctor Rhodes, Sir Edward Howard, 
 Settle, Caryll (Earl of Caryll, of James II. 's creation), 
 Henry Lucius Carey (Viscount Falkland), Duke of 
 Newcastle, Shirley, Sir Charles Sedley, Mrs. Boothby, 
 Medbourne (actor), Corye, Revet, Crowne, Ravens- 
 croft, Wycherley, Arrowsmith, Nevil Payne, Sir W. 
 Killigrew, Duffet, Sir F. Fane, Otway, Durfey, Raw- 
 lins, Leanard, Bankes, Pordage, Rymer, Shipman, 
 Tate, Bancroft, Whitaker, Maidwell, Saunders (a boy 
 poet), and Southerne. 
 
 Here are already nearly threescore authors (some 
 few of whom had commenced their career prior to 
 the Restoration) who supplied the two theatres, be- 
 
 1 68
 
 THE DRAMATIC POETS 169 
 
 tween 1659 and 1682, in which latter year began that 
 " Union," under which London had but one theatre, 
 till the year 1695. 
 
 Within the thirteen years of the Union, appeared as 
 dramatic writers : 
 
 The Earl of Rochester ; Jevon, Mountfort, Har- 
 ris, Powell, and Carlisle (actors) ; Wilson, Brady, 
 Congreve, Wright, and Higden. 
 
 From the period of the dissolution of the Union to 
 the end of the century occur the names of 
 
 Colley Gibber (actor), Mrs. Trotter (Cockburn), 
 Gould, Mrs. Fix, Mrs. Manley, Norton, Scott, Doggett 
 (actor), Dryden, Jr., Lord Lansdowne (Granville), 
 Dilke, Sir John Vanbrugh, Gildon, Drake, Filmer, 
 Motteux, Hopkins, Walker, W. Phillips, Farquhar, 
 Boyer, Dennis, Burnaby, Oldmixon, Mrs. Centlivre 
 (Carroll), Crauford, and Rowe. 
 
 In the above list there are above a hundred names 
 of authors, none of whose productions can now be 
 called stock-pieces ; though of some four or five of 
 these writers a play is occasionally performed, to try 
 an actor's skill or tempt an indifferent audience. 
 
 Of the actors who became authors, Cibber alone 
 was eminently successful, and of him I shall speak 
 apart. The remainder were mere adapters. Of Bet- 
 terton's eight plays, I find one tragedy borrowed from 
 Webster ; and of his comedies, one was taken from 
 Marston ; a second raised on Moliere's George Dan- 
 din ; a third was never printed ; his " Henry the 
 Fourth " was one of those unhallowed outrages on 
 Shakespeare, of which the century in which it ap- 
 peared was prolific ; his " Bondman " was a poor re- 
 construction of Massinger's play, in which Betterton
 
 1 70 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 himself was marvellously great ; and his " Prophetess " 
 was a conversion of Beaumont and Fletcher's tragedy 
 into an opera, by the efficient aid of Henry Purcell, 
 who published the music in score, in 1691. There 
 was noble music wedded to noble words, and for the 
 recreation of those who could appreciate neither, 
 there was a dance of quaint figures, from whom, when 
 about to sit down, the chairs slipped under them, took 
 up the measure, and concluded by dancing it out. 
 
 Medbourne produced only his translation of the 
 "Tartuffe," Jevon only one comedy. Mountfort, 
 like Betterton, was an indifferent author. His " In- 
 jured Lovers " ends almost as tragically as the apoc- 
 ryphal play in which all the characters being killed at 
 the end of the fourth act, the concluding act is brought 
 to a close by their executors. In Mountfort's loyal 
 tragedy all the principal personages receive their 
 quietus, and the denouement is left in the hands of 
 a solitary and wicked colonel, with a contented mind. 
 " Edward the Third " is so much more natural than 
 the above, that it is by some assigned to Bancroft, 
 while " Zelmani " is only hypothetically attributed to 
 Mountfort, on the ground, apparently, of its absurdi- 
 ties. In the preface to his " Successful Strangers," 
 Mountfort modestly remarks, " I have a natural incli- 
 nation to poetry, which was born and not bred in me ; " 
 He showed small inventive power in his bustling 
 comedy, " Greenwich Park," and less respect for a 
 master in minstrelsy, when he turned poor Kit Mar- 
 lowe's " Doctor Faustus " into an impassioned sort of 
 burlesque, with the addition of Harlequin and Scara- 
 mouch to give zest to the buffoonery ! 
 
 Carlisle, the actor who fell at Aghrim, was the
 
 THE DRAMATIC POETS 171 
 
 author of the " Fortune Hunters ; " and Joseph 
 Harris, who was a poor comedian, and the marrer of 
 four adapted and unsuccessful plays, resumed, under 
 Queen Anne, his original vocation of engraver to 
 the mint. The age was one of adapters, whose cry 
 was that Shakespeare would not attract, and accord- 
 ingly George Powell combined authorship with acting, 
 and borrowed from Shirley, from Brome, and from 
 Middleton. Mrs. Fix, and the romancers, produced 
 a few plays, from one of which a recent dramatist 
 has stolen as boldly as George himself was wont to 
 steal. I allude to the "Imposture Defeated," in 
 which Artan (a demon) enables Hernando, a physi- 
 cian, to foretell the fate of each patient, according as 
 Artan takes his stand at the foot, or at the head of 
 the bed. One word will suffice for Doggett's con- 
 tribution to stage literature. He was the author of 
 one lively, but not edifying, piece, entitled the " Coun- 
 try Wake," in which he provided himself with a 
 taking part called Hob, and one for Mrs. Bracegirdle, 
 Flora. In a modified form, this piece was known 
 to our grandfathers as "Flora; or, Hob in the 
 Well." 
 
 The actors themselves, then, were not efficient as 
 authors. Let us now see what the noble gentlemen, 
 the amateur rather than professional poets, contrib- 
 uted toward the public entertainment and their own 
 reputation during the last half of the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 They may be reckoned at a dozen and a half, from 
 dukes to knights. Of the two dukes, Buckingham 
 and Newcastle, the former is the more distinguished 
 dramatic writer. He was a man of great wit and no
 
 172 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 virtue ; a member of two universities, but no honour 
 to either. He was one who respected neither his 
 own wife nor his neighbour's, and was faithful to the 
 king only as long as the king would condescend to 
 obey his caprices. From 1627, when he was born, 
 to April, 1688, the year of his death, history has 
 placed no generous action of his upon record, but 
 has registered many a crime and meanness. He 
 lived a profligate peer, in a magnificence almost Orien- 
 tal ; he died a beggar ; bankrupt in everything but 
 impudence. Dryden and Pope have given him ever- 
 lasting infamy ; the latter not without a touch of 
 pity, felt not at all by the former. Historians have 
 justified the severity of the poets ; Gilbert Burnet 
 has dismissed him with a sneer, and Baxter has 
 thrown in a word on behalf of his humanity. 
 
 His play of the " Chances " was a mere adaptation 
 of the piece so named by Beaumont and Fletcher. 
 Plays which were attributed to him, but of which he 
 was not the author, need not be mentioned. The 
 duke's dramatic reputation rests on his great bur- 
 lesque tragedy, the " Rehearsal ; " but even in this 
 he is said to have had the assistance of Butler, Mar- 
 tin Clifford, and Doctor Sprat. Written to deride 
 the bombastic tragedies then in vogue, Dayenant, 
 Dryden, and Sir Robert Howard are, by turns, struck 
 at, under the person of the poet Bayes ; and the 
 irritability of the second, under the allusions, are 
 perhaps warrant that the satire was good. The 
 humour is good, too ; the very first exhibition of it 
 excited the mirth which afterward broke into peal 
 upon peal of laughter. The rehearsed play com- 
 mences with a scene between the royal usher and the
 
 THE DRAMATIC POETS 173 
 
 royal physician, in a series of whispers ; for, as Mr. 
 Bayes remarks, the two officials were plotting against 
 the king ; but this fact it was necessary, as yet, to 
 keep from the audience ! 
 
 Mr. Cavendish, whose services in the royal cause 
 deservedly earned for him that progress through the 
 peerage which terminated in his creation as Duke of 
 Newcastle, was the opposite of Buckingham in most 
 things save his taste for magnificence, in which he 
 surpassed Villiers. Two thousand pounds were as 
 cheerfully spent on feasting Charles I., as the duke's 
 blood was vainly shed for the same monarch in the 
 field. He lived like a man who had the purse of 
 Fortunatus ; but in exile at Antwerp, he pawned his 
 best clothes and jewels, that he and his celebrated 
 wife might have the means of existence. He was 
 the author of a few plays, two of which were repre- 
 sented after the Restoration. The "Country Cap- 
 tain," and "Variety," were composed in the reign of 
 Charles I. The " Humourous Lovers," and the 
 "Triumphant Widow," subsequently. These are 
 bustling but immoral comedies, suiting, but not cor- 
 recting, the vices of the times ; and singular, in their 
 slipshod style, as coming from the author of the 
 pompous treatise on horses and horsemanship. Pepys 
 ascribes the "Humourous Lovers" to the duchess. 
 He calls it a " silly play ; the most silly thing that 
 ever came upon a stage. I was sick to see it, but 
 yet would not but have seen it, that I might the 
 better understand her." Pepys is equally severe 
 against the " Country Captain." The duke seems to 
 have aimed at the delineation of character, particu- 
 larly in " Variety," and the " Triumphant Widow, or
 
 174 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 the Medley of Humours." Johnson grieves over the 
 oblivion which, in his time, had fallen on these works, 
 and later authors have declared that the duke's come- 
 dies ought not to have been forgotten. They have 
 at least been remembered by some of our modern 
 novelists in want of incident. 
 
 Of the three earls, all of whose pieces were pro- 
 duced previous to 1680, there is not much to be said 
 in praise. The eccentric, clever, brave, inconsistent, 
 contradictory George Digby, Earl of Bristol, he who 
 turned Romanist at the instigation of Don John 
 of Austria, and, aiming at office himself, conspired 
 against Clarendon, was the author of one acted piece, 
 " Elvira," one of the two out of which Mrs. Centlivre 
 built up her own clever bit of mosaic, the " Wonder." 
 Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, in whom all the vices of 
 Buckingham were exaggerated ; to whom virtue and 
 honour seemed disgusting, and even the affectation 
 of them, or of ordinary decency, an egregious folly, 
 found leisure in the least feverish hour of some five 
 years' drunkenness, to give to the stage an adapta- 
 tion of "Valentinian," by Beaumont and Fletcher, in 
 which he assigned a part to Mrs. Barry the very 
 last that any other lover would have thought of for 
 his mistress. The noble poet, little more than thirty 
 years old, lay in a dishonoured grave when his piece 
 was represented, in 1680; but the young actress just 
 named, gaily alluded, in a prologue, to the demure 
 nymphs in the house who had succumbed, nothing 
 loath, to the irresistible blandishments of this very 
 prince of blackguards. 
 
 The Earl of Caryll was a man of another spirit. 
 He was the head of the family to which Pope's
 
 THE DRAMATIC POETS 175 
 
 Carylls belonged, and being a faithful servant of 
 James II., in adversity as well as in prosperity, the 
 king made him an earl, at that former period, when 
 the law of England did not recognise the creation. 
 Caryll was of the party who talked of the unpopu- 
 larity of Shakespeare, and who for the poet's gold 
 offered poor tinsel of their own. His rhymed drama 
 of the "English Princess, or the Death of Richard 
 the Third," owed its brief favour to the acting of 
 Betterton, who could render even nonsense imposing. 
 His comedy of " Sir Solomon, or the Cautious Cox- 
 comb," was " taken from the French." The chief 
 scenes were mere translations of Moliere's " ficole 
 des Femmes ; " but life, and fun, and wit, were given 
 to them again by Betterton, who in th'e comic old 
 Sir Solomon shook the sides of the- "house," as 
 easily as he could, in other characters, move them to 
 wonder, or melt them to tears. 
 
 In 1664, another "lance was broken with Shake- 
 speare " by Lord Orrery, the Lord Broghill of earlier 
 days. There was something dramatic in this lord's 
 life. He was a marvellous boy, younger son of a 
 marvellous father, the "great Earl of Cork." Before 
 he was fifteen, Dublin University was proud of him. 
 At that age he went on the "grand tour," at twenty 
 married the Earl of Suffolk's daughter, and landed 
 in Ireland, to keep his wedding, on the very day of 
 the outbreak of the Rebellion of 1641. The young 
 bridegroom fought bravely for homestead and king, 
 and went into exile when that king was slain ; but he 
 heeded the lure of Cromwell, won for him the vic- 
 tory of Macroom, rescued him from defeat at Clon- 
 mel, and crushed Muskerry, and his numerous papal
 
 176 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 host. From Richard Cromwell Broghill kept aloof, 
 and helped forward the Restoration, for which ser- 
 vice Charles made him a peer, Earl of Orrery. The 
 earl showed his gratitude by deifying kings, and in- 
 culcating submissiveness, teaching the impeccability 
 of monarchs, and the extreme naughtiness of their 
 people. Pepys comically bewails the fact that, on 
 going to see a new piece by Orrery, he only sees an 
 old one under a new name, such wearying sameness 
 is there in the rhymed phrases of them all. 
 
 Orrery's tilt against Shakespeare is comprised in 
 his attempt to suppress that poet's " Henry V." by 
 giving one of his own, in which Henry and Owen 
 Tudor are simultaneously in love with Katherine of 
 France. The love is carried on in a style of stilted 
 burlesque ; and yet the dignity and wit of this piece 
 enraptured Pepys but then he saw it at court, in 
 December, 1666 ; Lord Bellasis having taken him to 
 Whitehall, after seeing " Macbeth " at the Duke's 
 House; "and there," he says, "after all staying 
 above an hour for the players, the king and all wait- 
 ing, which was absurd, saw ' Henry V.' well done by 
 the duke's people, and in most excellent habits, all 
 new vests, being put on but this night. But I sat so 
 high, and so far off, that I missed most of the words, 
 and sat with a wind coming into my back and neck, 
 which did much trouble me. The play continued till 
 twelve at night, and then up, and a most horrid cold 
 night it was, and frosty, and moonshine ; " and it 
 might have been worse. 
 
 In Orrery's "Mustapha" and "Tryphon," the 
 theme is all love and honour, without variation. 
 Orrery's " Mr. Anthony " is a five-act farce, in
 
 THE DRAMATIC POETS 177 
 
 ridicule of the manners and morals of the Puritans. 
 Therein the noble author rolls in the mire for the 
 gratification of the pure-minded cavaliers. Over 
 Orrery's " Black Prince," even vigilant Mr. Pepys 
 himself fell asleep, in spite of the stately dances. 
 Perhaps he was confused by the author's illustration 
 of genealogical history ; for in this play, Joan, the 
 wife of the Black Prince, is described as the widow 
 of Edmund, Earl of Kent, her father ! But what 
 mattered it to the writer whose only teaching to the 
 audience was, that if they did not fear God, they 
 must take care to honour the king? Orrery's "Alte- 
 mira " was not produced till long after his death. It 
 is a roar of passion, love (or what passed for it), 
 jealousy, despair, and murder. In the concluding 
 scene the slaughter is terrific. It all takes place in 
 presence of an unobtrusive individual, who carries the 
 doctrine of non-intervention to its extreme limit. 
 When the persons of the drama have made an end 
 of one another, the quietly delighted gentleman steps 
 forward, and blandly remarks, that there was so much 
 virtue, love, and honour in it all, that he could not 
 find it in his heart to interfere, though his own son 
 was one of the victims ! 
 
 A contemporary of Orrery, young Henry Carey, 
 Viscount Falkland, son of the immortal soldier who 
 fell at Newbury, wrote one piece, the " Marriage 
 Night," of which I know nothing, save that it was 
 played in the Lent of 1664; but I do know that the 
 author had wit, for when some one remarked, as 
 Carey took his seat in the House of Commons for 
 the first time, that he looked as if he had not sown 
 his wild oats, he replied, that he had come to the
 
 178 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 place where there were geese enough to pick them 
 up ! 
 
 The last of the dramatic lords of this century was 
 that Lord Lansdowne whom Pope called " Granville 
 the polite," and absurdly compared with Surrey, by 
 awkwardly calling the latter the "Granville of a 
 former age." Granville was a statesman, a Tory, 
 a stiff-backed gentleman in a stiff-backed period, 
 and a sufferer for his opinions. Driven into leisure, 
 he addressed himself to literature, in connection with 
 which he committed a crime against the majesty of 
 Shakespeare, which was unpardonable. He recon- 
 structed the "Merchant of Venice," called it the 
 "Jew of Venice," and assigned Shylock to Doggett. 
 Lord Lansdowne's " She-Gallants " is a vile comedy 
 for its " morals," but a vivacious one for its manner. 
 Old Downes, the prompter, sneers at the offence 
 taken at it by some ladies, who, he thinks, affected, 
 rather than possessed, virtue, themselves. But ladies, 
 in 1696, were offended at such outrages on decency 
 as this play contains. They were not the first who 
 had made similar protest. Even in this lord's tragedy 
 of "Heroic Love," Achilles and Briseis are only a 
 little more decent than Ravenscroft's loose rakes and 
 facile nymphs. The only consolation one has in 
 reading the "Jew of Venice" (produced in 1701) 
 is, that there are some passages the marrer could not 
 spoil. As for Shylock, Rowe expressed the opinion 
 of the public when, in spite of the success of the 
 comic edition of the character, he said, modestly 
 enough, " I cannot but think the character was trag- 
 ically designed by the author." Dryden, Pope, and 
 Johnson, have in their turn eulogised Granville ; but.
 
 THE DRAMATIC POETS 179 
 
 as a dramatic poet, he reflects no honour either on 
 the century in which he was born, or on that in which 
 he died. Indeed, of the dramatist peers of the seven- 
 teenth century, there is not a play that has survived 
 to our times. 
 
 And now, coming to a dozen of baronets, knights, 
 and honourables, let us point to two, Sir Samuel 
 Tuke and Sir William Killigrew, who may claim pre- 
 cedence for their comparative purity, if not for decided 
 dramatic talent. To the former, an old colonel of 
 the Cavalier times, Charles II. recommended a com- 
 edy of Calderon's, which Sir Samuel produced at the 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, in 1663, under the title 
 of the "Adventures of Five Hours." The public 
 generally, and Pepys especially, were unusually de- 
 lighted with this well-constructed comedy. When 
 it was played at Whitehall, Mrs. Pepys saw it from 
 Lady Fox's " pew ; " and, making an odd comparison, 
 the diarist thought " Othello " a " mean thing " when 
 weighed against the "Adventures;" but his chief 
 praise is, that it is " without one word of ribaldry ; " 
 and Echard has added thereto his special commenda- 
 tion as a critic. 
 
 Sir Robert Stapylton says of William Killigrew 
 what could not be said of his brother Tom (whose 
 plays were written before the Restoration), that in 
 
 him were found 
 
 "... plots well laid, 
 The language pure and ev'ry sentence weighed." 
 
 Sir William, a soldier of the first Charles's fighting 
 time, a courtier, and vice-chamberlain to the queen, 
 in " Rowley's " days, was the author of four or five 
 plays, one only of which deserves any notice here,
 
 i8o THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 namely, his comedy of "Pandora." The heroine of 
 this drama, resolving to cloister herself up from mar- 
 riage, allows love to be made to her in jest, and of 
 course ends by becoming a wife in happy earnest. 
 The author had, at first, made a tragedy of " Pan- 
 dora." The masters of the stage objected to it in 
 that form ; and, it being all the same to the complai- 
 sant Sir William, he converted his tragedy into a 
 comedy ! 
 
 Sir Robert Stapylton, himself a Douay student 
 converted to Protestantism ; a cavalier, who turned 
 to a hanger-on at court, but who was always a 
 scholar and a gentleman, has received more cen- 
 sure than praise at the hands of a greater critic and 
 poet than himself. Pepys took no interest in Stapyl- 
 ton's "Slighted Maid," even though his own wife's 
 maid, Gosnell, had a part in it ; and Dryden has 
 remarked of it, with too 'much severity, that "there 
 is nothing in the first act that might not be said or 
 done in the second ; nor anything in the middle which 
 might not as well have been at the beginning or the 
 end." Stapylton, like the wits of his time, generally, 
 wrote more weakly than he spoke. This was the 
 case, too, with Tom Killigrew, of whom Scott re- 
 marks truly, in a very awkward simile (" Life of 
 Dryden "), that " the merit of his good things evapo- 
 rated as soon as he attempted to interweave them 
 with comedy." 
 
 But, who is this jaunty personage, so noisy at 
 a rehearsal of one of his own indifferent plays ? It 
 is " Ned Howard," one of the three sons of the dirty 
 Earl of Berkshire, the first Howard who bore that 
 title, and whom Pepys saw one July day of 1666,
 
 THE DRAMATIC POETS 181 
 
 serving the king with liquor, " in that dirty pickle 
 I never saw man in, in my life." The daughter of 
 this earl was the wife of Dryden. 
 
 And what does Ned Howard say at rehearsal? 
 The actors are making some objection to his piece ; 
 but he exclaims, " In fine, it shall read, and write, 
 and act, and print, and pit, box, and gallery it, egad, 
 with any play in Europe ! " The play fails ; and then 
 you may hear Ned in any coffee-house, or wherever 
 there is a company, proclaiming, by way of excuse, 
 that "Mr. So-and-So, the actor, didn't top his part, 
 sir ! " It was Ned Howard's favourite phrase. 
 
 The old Earl of Berkshire gave three sons to 
 literature, besides a daughter to Dryden ; namely, 
 Sir Robert, James, and this Edward. The last 
 named was the least effective. His characters 
 "talk," but they are engaged in no plot; and they 
 exhibit a dull lack of incident. The most of his six 
 or seven dramas were failures ; but from one of them, 
 which was the most original, indecent, and the most 
 decidedly damned, Mrs. Inchbald condescended to 
 extract matter which she turned to very good purpose 
 in her "Every One Has His Fault." Edward How- 
 ard gratified the court party in his tragedy of " The 
 Usurper," by describing, under the character of 
 Damocles the Syracusan, the once redoubted Oliver 
 Cromwell ; while Hugo de Petra but thinly veiled 
 Hugh Peters ; and Cleomenes is said to have been 
 the shadow of General Monk. Lacy said that Ned 
 was "more of a fool than a poet ; " and Buckingham 
 was of the same opinion. 
 
 James Howard came under Buckingham's censure, 
 too; and an incident in the "English Monsieur,"
 
 i8a THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 which, if Pepys's criticism may be accepted, was a 
 mighty pretty, witty, pleasant, mirthful comedy, fur- 
 nished the satirical touch in the "Rehearsal," where 
 Prince Volscius falls in love with Parthenope, as he 
 is pulling on his boots to go out of town. James 
 Howard belonged to the faction which affected to 
 believe that there was no popular love for Shake- 
 speare, to render whom palatable, he arranged 
 "Romeo and Juliet" for the stage, with a double 
 denouement, one serious, the other hilarious. If 
 your heart were too sensitive to bear the deaths of 
 the loving pair, you had only to go on the succeeding 
 afternoon to see them wedded, and set upon the way 
 of a well-assured domestic felicity ! 
 
 This species of humour was not wanting in Sir 
 Robert Howard, who won his knighthood by valour 
 displayed in saving Lord Wilmot's life, in the hot 
 affair at Cropredy Bridge. Sir Robert has been as 
 much pommelled as patted by Dryden. Buckingham 
 dragged him in effigy across the stage, and Shad well 
 ridiculed the universality of his pretensions by a 
 clever caricature of him, in the " Impertinents," as 
 Sir Positive Atall. For the king's purpose, Howard 
 cajoled the Parliament out of money ; for his own 
 purpose, he cajoled the king out of both money and 
 place ; and netted several thousands a year by affixing 
 his very legible signature to warrants, issued by him 
 as auditor of the exchequer. The humour which 
 he had in common with his brother James, he ex- 
 hibited by giving two opposite catastrophes to his 
 "Vestal Virgins," between which the public were 
 free to choose. Sir Robert has generally been looked 
 upon as a servile courtier ; but people were astounded
 
 THE DRAMATIC POETS 183 
 
 at the courage displayed by him in his "Great 
 Favourite, or the Duke of Lerma;" in which the 
 naughtiness of the king's ways, and still more that 
 of the women about him, was shown in a light which 
 left no doubt as to the application of the satire. His 
 bombastic periods have died away in the echoes of 
 them which Fielding caught in his " Tom Thumb ; " 
 but his comic power is strongly and admirably mani- 
 fested in his "Committee," a transcript of Puritan 
 life, which applied to Quakers, for want of better 
 subjects for caricature may still be witnessed in 
 country theatres, in the farce of " Honest Thieves." 
 Like many other satirists, Sir Robert could not 
 detect his own weak points. In his " Blind Lady," 
 he ridicules an old widow in desperate want of a 
 seventh husband ; and at threescore and ten he him- 
 self married buxom Mistress Dives, one of the maids 
 of honour to Queen Mary. 
 
 Of comedies portraying national or individual follies, 
 perhaps the most successful, and the most laughable, 
 was James Howard's " English Monsieur," in which 
 the hero-Englishman execrates everything that is 
 connected with his country. To him, an English 
 meal is poison, and an English coat, degradation. 
 The English Monsieur once challenged a rash person 
 who had praised an English dinner, and, says he, " I 
 ran him through his mistaken palate, which made me 
 think the hand of justice guided my sword." Is 
 there a damp walk, along which the Gallo-Englishman 
 passes, he can distinguish between the impressions 
 previously left there by English or French ladies, 
 the footsteps of the latter being of course altogether 
 the more fairy-like. " I have seen such bonne mint
 
 184 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 in their footsteps, that the King of France's tnaitre 
 de dame could not have found fault with any one 
 tread amongst them all. In these walks," he adds, 
 " I find the toes of English ladies ready to tread upon 
 one another." 
 
 Later in the play, the hero quarrels with a friend 
 who had found fault with a "pair of French tops," 
 worn by the former. These boots made so much 
 noise when the wearer moved in them, that the 
 friend's mistress could not hear a word of the love 
 made to her. The wearer, however, justifies the 
 noise as a fashionable French noise : " for, look you, 
 sir, a French noise is agreeable to the ear, and there- 
 fore not unagreeable, not prejudicial to the hearing; 
 that is to say,, to a person who has seen the world." 
 The English Monsieur, as a matter of course, loves 
 a French lady, who rejects his suit ; but to be 
 repulsed by a French dame had something pleasant 
 in it ; " 'twas a denial with a French tone of voice, 
 so that 'twas agreeable." Ultimately, the nymph bids 
 him a final adieu, and the not too dejected lover 
 exclaims to a friend: "Do you see, sir, how she 
 leaves us ; she walks away with a French step ! " 
 
 One word may be said here for Sir Ludovick Car- 
 lile, the old gentleman of the bows to Charles I. 
 Like Shirley, Killigrew, and Davenant, he had 
 written plays before the time of the Commonwealth ; 
 and he survived to write more, after the Restoration. 
 The only one, however, which he offered to the 
 players was a translation of " Heraclius," by Cor- 
 neille; and that was returned on his hands. There 
 is another knight, Sir Francis Fane, from whose 
 comedy of " Love in the Dark, " Mrs. Centlivre, more
 
 THE DRAMATIC POETS 185 
 
 clever at appropriation than Mrs. Inchbald, has taken 
 Intrigo, the man of business, and turned him into 
 Marplot, with considerable improvements ; but as 
 Fane himself borrowed every incident, and did not 
 trouble himself about his language, his merit is only 
 of the smallest order. He wrote a fair masque, and 
 in his unrepresented " Sacrifice " was little courtier 
 enough to make his Tamerlane declare that "princes, 
 for the most part, keep the worst company." He 
 and Sir Robert Howard, both Tories, could, when it 
 pleased them, tell the truth, like the plainest spoken 
 Whig. 
 
 More successful than Sir Francis was rollicking 
 Tom Porter, or Major Porter, according to his military 
 rank. Both were luckless gentlemen ; but Tom 
 wrote one play, the " Villain," which put the town in a 
 flame, and raised Sandford's fame, as an actor, to its 
 very highest. Tom was also the author of a rattling 
 comedy, called the " Carnival," but rioting, and bad 
 company and hot temper marred him. He and Sir 
 Henry Bellasys, dining at Sir Robert Carr's, fell 
 into fierce dispute, out of mutual error ; fierce words, 
 then a thoughtless blow from Sir Henry, then swords 
 crossing, and tipsy people parting the combatants. 
 They were really warm friends ; but Tom had been 
 struck, and honour forbade that he should be recon- 
 ciled till blood had flown. So Dryden's boy was 
 employed to track Bellasys, and the major came upon 
 him in Covent Garden, where they fought, surrounded 
 by a crowd of admirers. Tom's honour was satisfied 
 by passing his sword through the body of his dearest 
 friend. The knight felt the wound was mortal, but 
 he beckoned the less grievously wounded major to
 
 186 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 him, kissed him, and remained standing, that Tom 
 might not be obstructed in his flight. The friend 
 and poet safe, the knight fell back, and soon after 
 died. There was really noble stuff in some of these 
 dissolute fine gentlemen ! But there are no two of 
 them who have so faithfully illustrated themselves, 
 and the times in which they lived, as Sir George 
 Etherege and Sir Charles Sedley; the former, a 
 knight by purchase, in order to please a silly woman, 
 who vowed she would marry none but a man of title ; 
 the latter, a baronet by inheritance. Sir George, 
 born in 1636, was the descendant of a good Sir 
 Charles, born three years later, a member of a better 
 family, reckoning among its sons, scholars and 
 patrons of scholars. Sir George left Cambridge un- 
 distinguished, but took his degree in foreign travel, 
 came home to find the study of the law too base a 
 drudgery for so free a spirit, and so took to living 
 like a "gentleman," and to illustrating the devilish- 
 ness of that career by reproducing it in dramas on 
 the stage. 
 
 Sedley left Oxford as Etherege left Cambridge, 
 ingloriously, bearing no honours with him. Unlike 
 Sir George, however, he was a home-keeping youth, 
 whereby his wit seems not to have suffered. He 
 nursed the latter in the groves, or at the paternal 
 hearth at Aylesford, in Kent, till the sun of the 
 restored monarchy enticed him to London. There 
 his wit recommended him to the king, won for him 
 the hatred of small minds, and elicited the praise of 
 noble spirits, who were witty themselves, and loved 
 the manifestation of wit in others. " I have heard," 
 says honest, brilliant, and much-abused Shadwell, " I
 
 THE DRAMATIC POETS 187 
 
 have heard Sedley speak more wit at a supper than 
 all my adversaries, putting their heads together, could 
 write in a year." This testimony was rendered by a 
 man whose own reputation as a wit has the stamp 
 and the warrant of Rochester. 
 
 Two more atrocious libertines than these two men 
 were not to be found in the apartments at Whitehall, 
 or in the streets, taverns, and dens of London. Yet 
 both were famed for like external qualities. Etherege 
 was easy and graceful, Sedley so refinedly seductive 
 of manner that Buckingham called it "witchcraft," 
 and Wilmot "his prevailing, gentle art." I, humbler 
 witness, can only say, after studying their works and 
 their lives, that Etherege was a more accomplished 
 comedy-writer than Sedley, but that Sedley was a 
 greater beast than Etherege. 
 
 These two handsome fellows, made in God's image, 
 marred their manly beauty by their licentiousness, 
 and soon looked more like two battered, wine-soaked 
 demons, than the sons of Christian mothers. Ether- 
 ege, however, fierce and vindictive as he could be 
 under passion, was never so utterly brutalised in 
 mind as Sedley, nor so cruel in his humours at any 
 time. If Sedley got up that groundless quarrel with 
 Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury, the alleged cause 
 of which was some painted hussy, it was doubtless 
 out of the very ferocity of his fun, which he thought 
 well spent on exhibiting the prelate as sharing in the 
 vices common at court. 
 
 Etherege, perhaps, had the stronger head of the 
 two ; he, at all events, kept it sufficiently free to be 
 able to represent his king on more than one small 
 diplomatic mission abroad. Sedley, who was never-
 
 i8S THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 theless the longer liver of the two, indulged in ex- 
 cesses which, from their inexpressible infamy, betray 
 a sort of insanity. When he, with other blackguards 
 of good blood, was brought to trial for public out- 
 rages, which disgusted even the hideous wretches 
 that lurked about Covent Garden, Chief Justice Fos- 
 ter addressed him from the bench with a " Sirrah ! " 
 and told him, while the reminiscence of the plague 
 and the smoke of the Great Fire still hung over the 
 court, that it was such wretches as he that brought 
 God's wrath so heavily upon the kingdom. But 
 neither the heavy fine of two thousand marks, nor 
 his imprisonment, nor his being bound over to keep 
 the peace for three years, nor his own conscience, 
 nor the rebuke of wise men, could restrain this mis- 
 creant. He was not yet free from his bond when 
 he and Buckhurst and others were carried off to the 
 watch-house by the night constables for fighting in 
 the streets, drunk, as was their custom, and as naked 
 as their drawn swords. On this occasion, in 1668, 
 the king interfered in their favour, and Chief Justice 
 Keeling, servile betrayer of his trust, let them go 
 scatheless ; but he punished the constables by whom 
 they had been arrested ! 
 
 Etherege contributed three comedies to the stage : 
 "The Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub," "She 
 Would if She Could," and the "Man of Mode, or 
 Sir Fopling Flutter." Sedley wrote the " Mulberry 
 Garden;" a tragedy, called "Antony and Cleopa- 
 tra," wherein a single incident in Shakespeare's play 
 is spun out into five acts ; " Bellamira," in which 
 comedy, partly founded on the " Eunuchus " of Ter- 
 ence, he exhibited the frailty of Lady Castlemaine,
 
 THE DRAMATIC POETS 189 
 
 and the audacity of Churchill ; a translated drama 
 from the French, called the " Grumbler ; " and a 
 tragedy, entitled the " Tyrant King of Crete." Of 
 all Sedley's pieces, the best is the " Mulberry Gar- 
 den," for portions of which the author is indebted 
 to Moliere's " Ecole des Maris," and on which Pepys's 
 criticism is not to be gainsaid : " Here and there 
 a pretty saying, and that not very many either." 
 " Bellamira" is remembered only as the play during 
 the first representation of which the roof of the 
 Theatre Royal fell in, with such just discrimination 
 as to injure no one but the author. Sir Fleet wood 
 Shepherd said that " the wit of the latter had blown 
 the roof from the building." " Not so," rejoined 
 Sedley, "the heaviness of the play has broke down 
 the house, and buried the author in the ruins ! " 
 
 Etherege's comedies were, in their day, the dear 
 delight of the majority of playgoers. I say the 
 majority; for though "Love in a Tub" brought 
 ; 1,000 profit to Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, in a 
 single month of 1664, and was acted before enrap- 
 tured gallants and appreciating nymphs, at White- 
 hall, some found it a silly play. It gave Etherege a 
 name and a position ; and when his next comedy 
 appeared, " She Would if She Could," a thousand 
 anxious people, with leisure enough of an afternoon 
 to see plays (it was only at court that they were 
 acted at night), were turned away from the doors. 
 To me, this piece is very distasteful, and it is not 
 without satisfaction I read that it was on the first 
 night "barbarously treated," according to Dennis, 
 and that Pepys found " nothing in the world good in 
 it, and few people pleased with it." The plot and
 
 190 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 denouement he pronounces as "mighty insipid ;" yet 
 he says of the piece as a whole, that it was " dull, 
 roguish, and witty." The actors, however, were not 
 perfect on the first night. Dennis praised the truth 
 of character, the purity, freedom, and grace of the 
 dialogue, and Shadwell declared that it was the best 
 comedy since the Restoration, to his own time. All 
 this eulogy is not to be accepted. Etherege's third 
 comedy, the "Man of Mode," has been described as 
 "perhaps the most elegant comedy, and containing 
 more of the real manners of high life, than any one 
 the English stage was ever adorned with." In the 
 latter respect alone is this description true ; but, 
 though the piece is dedicated to a lady, the Duchess 
 of York, it could have afforded pleasure, as the 
 Spectator remarks, only to the impure. People, no 
 doubt, were delighted to recognise Rochester in 
 Dorimant, Etherege himself in Bellair, and the 
 stupendous ass, Beau Hewitt, in Sir Fopling ; but it 
 must have been a weary delight ; so debased is the 
 nature of these people, however truly they represent, 
 as they unquestionably did, the manners, bearing, and 
 language of the higher classes. 
 
 How they dressed, talked, and thought ; what they 
 did, and how they did it ; what they hoped for, and 
 how they pursued it ; all this, and many other exem- 
 plifications of life as it was then understood, may be 
 found especially in the plays of Etherege, in which 
 there is a bustle and a succession of incidents, from 
 the rise to the fall of the curtain. But the fine gen- 
 tlemen are such unmitigated rascals, and the women 
 girls and matrons are such unlovely hussies, in 
 rascality and unseemliness quite a match for the men,
 
 THE DRAMATIC POETS 191 
 
 that one escapes from their wretched society, and a 
 knowledge of their one object, and the confidences 
 of the abominable creatures engaged therein, with a 
 feeling of a strong want of purification, and of that 
 ounce of civet which sweetens the imagination. 
 
 Of the remaining amateur writers there is not 
 much to be said. Rhodes was a gentleman's son 
 without an estate, a doctor without practice, and a 
 dramatist without perseverance. His one comedy, 
 " Flora's Vagaries " (1667), gave a capital part to 
 Nelly, and a reputation to the doctor, which he failed 
 to sustain. Corye was another idle gentleman, who, 
 in the same year, produced his " Generous Enemies," 
 and that piece was a plagiarism. Ned Revet also 
 exhausted himself in one comedy, "The Town 
 Shifts," which the town found insipid. Arrowship 
 was in like plight, and his sole comedy, " The Refor- 
 mation," was obliged to give way to Shakespeare's 
 " Macbeth," converted into an opera. Nevil Payne 
 was the author of three pieces : " Fatal Jealousy," 
 in which Nokes earned his name of " Nurse Nokes ; " 
 the "Morning Ramble," which was less attractive, in 
 1673, than the " Tempest," even in an operatic form, 
 or " Hamlet," with Betterton for the hero ; and the 
 "Siege of Constantinople," a tragedy in which 
 Shaftesbury and his vices were mercilessly satirised. 
 Tom Rawlins wrote three poor plays, the last in 1678, 
 and he had as great a contempt for the character of 
 author as Congreve himself. He was, like Joe 
 Harris, " engraver of the mint," kept fellowship with 
 wits and poets, wrote for amusement, and "had no 
 desire to be known by a threadbare coat, having a 
 calling that will maintain it woolly ! " Then there was
 
 192 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Leanard, who stole not more audaciously than he was 
 stolen from, when he chose to be original Colley 
 Gibber having taken many a point from the " Coun- 
 terfeits," to enrich " She Would and She Would 
 Not." Pordage was about as dull a writer as might 
 be expected of a man who was land-steward to " the 
 memorable simpleton," Philip, Earl of Pembroke. 
 Shipman enjoys the fame of having been highly es- 
 teemed by Cowley he certainly was not by the 
 public ; and Bancroft, the surgeon, had the reputation 
 of having been induced to write, as he did, unsuc- 
 cessfully, for the stage, because he prescribed for, or 
 rather against, the most fashionable malady of the 
 day, when it attacked theatre-hunting fops and actors 
 who stooped to imitate the gentlemen. From these 
 he caught the stage fever, and suffered considerably. 
 Whitaker's one play, "The Conspiracy," is remark- 
 able for the sensational incident of a ghost appearing, 
 leading Death by the hand ! Maidwell's comedy of 
 "The Loving Enemies" (the author was an old 
 schoolmaster) was noticeable for being "designedly 
 dull, lest by satirising folly the author might bring 
 upon his skull the bludgeon of fools." Saunders, 
 and his " Tamerlane the Great," are now forgotten ; 
 but Dryden spoke of the author, in an indecent 
 epilogue, as "the first boy-poet of our age;" who, 
 however, though he blossomed as early as Cowley, 
 did not flourish as long. 
 
 Wilson was another professional writer, but less 
 successful on the stage than in his recordership of 
 Londonderry. Another lawyer, Higden, was one 
 of the jolliest of fellows : and wishing the actors to 
 be so, too, he introduced so many drinking scenes
 
 THE DRAMATIC POETS 193 
 
 into his sole play, "The Wary Widow," that the 
 players, who tippled their real punch freely, were all 
 drunk by the end of the third act ; and the piece was 
 then, there, and thereby, brought to an end ! 
 
 In the last years of the seventeenth century, a 
 humble votary of the Muses appeared in Buffet, the 
 Exchange milliner; and in Robert Gould, a servant 
 in the household of Dorset, where he caught from 
 the wits and gay fellows assembled at Knowle or at 
 Buckhurst, a desire to write a drama. He was, how- 
 ever, a schoolmaster, when his play of the " Rival 
 Sisters" in which, other means of slaughter being 
 exhausted, a thunderbolt is employed for the killing 
 a lady was but coldly received. Gould was not 
 a plagiarist, like Scott, the Duke of Roxburgh's 
 secretary, nor so licentious. The public was scandal- 
 ised by incidents in Scott's " Unhappy Kindness," in 
 1697. Doctor Drake was another plagiarist, who 
 revenged himself, in the last-named year, for the con- 
 demnation of his " Sham Lawyers," by stating on 
 the title-page that it had been "damnably acted." 
 That year was fatal, too, to Doctor Filmer, the cham- 
 pion of the stage against Collier. Even Betterton 
 and Mrs. Barry failed to give life to the old gentle- 
 man's " Unnatural Brother ; " and the doctor ascribed 
 his want of success to the fact, that never at any one 
 time had he placed more than three characters on 
 the stage ! The most prolific of what may be termed 
 the amateur writers was Peter Motteux, a French 
 Huguenot, whom the revocation of the Edict of 
 Nantes brought, in 1660, to England, where he 
 carried on the vocations of a trader in Leadenhall 
 Street, clerk in the foreign department of the post-
 
 194 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 office, translator, original writer, dramatist, and " fast 
 man," till the too zealous pursuit of the latter call- 
 ing found Peter dead, in very bad company in St. 
 Clements Danes, in the year 1718. Of his seventeen 
 comedies, farces, and musical interludes, there is 
 nothing to be said, save that one called " Novelty " 
 presents a distinct play in each act, or five differ- 
 ent pieces in all. By different men, Peter has been 
 diversely rated. Dryden said of him, in reference to 
 his one tragedy, " Beauty in Distress : " 
 
 s " Thy incidents, perhaps, too thick are sown; 
 
 But too much plenty is thy fault alone : 
 At least but two in that good crime commit ; 
 Thou in design, and Wycherley in wit." 
 
 But an anonymous poet writes, in reference to one 
 of his various poor adaptations, "The Island Prin- 
 cess : " 
 
 " Motteux and Durfey are for nothing fit, 
 But to supply with songs their want of wit" 
 
 How Motteux found time for all his pursuits is not 
 to be explained ; but, much as he accomplished in 
 all, he designed still more one of his projects being 
 an opera, to be called "The Loves of Europe," in 
 which were to be represented the methods employed 
 in various nations, whereby ladies' hearts are trium- 
 phantly won. It was an odd idea ; but Peter Mot- 
 teux was odd in everything. And it is even oddly 
 said of him, "that he met with his fate in trying 
 a very odd experiment, highly disgraceful to his 
 memory ! " 
 
 Hard drinking, and what was euphoniously called
 
 THE DRAMATIC POETS 195 
 
 gallantry, killed good-tempered Charles Hopkins, son 
 of the Bishop of Londonderry. Had he had more 
 discretion and less wit, he might have prospered. 
 His tragedies, "Pyrrhus," "Boadicea," and "Friend- 
 ship Improved," bear traces of what he might have 
 done. He has the merit, however, of not being inde- 
 cent, a fact which the epilogue to " Boadicea," fur- 
 nished by a friend and spoken by a lady, rather 
 deplores, and in indecent language regrets that 
 uncleanness of jest is no longer acceptable to the 
 town ! 
 
 Walker merits notice, less for his two pieces, " Vic- 
 torious Love," and " Marry or Do Worse," than for 
 the fact that this young Barbadian was the first actor 
 whom Eton school gave to the stage. He appeared, 
 when only eighteen, in the first named piece, but 
 quickly passed away to the study of the law and the ex- 
 ercise of the latter as a profession, in his native island. 
 I know nothing worthy of record of the few other 
 gentlemen who wrote plays, rather as a relaxation 
 than a vocation, save that Boyer, a refugee Hugue- 
 not, like Motteux, and a learned man, adapted 
 Racine's "Iphigenia in Aulis," for representation; 
 that Oldmixon was an old, unscrupulous, party 
 writer; and that Crauford was historiographer for 
 Scotland to Queen Anne, and has left no name of 
 note among dramatic writers.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 PROFESSIONAL AUTHORS 
 
 THE men who took up dramatic authorship seri- 
 ously as a vocation, during the last half of the seven- 
 teenth century, amount to something more than two 
 dozen. They begin with Davenant and Dryden ; 
 include Tate and Brady, Lee and Otway, Wycherley, 
 Congreve, Gibber, and Vanbrugh ; and conclude with 
 Farquhar, and with Rowe. 
 
 I include Sir John Vanbrugh because he preferred 
 fame as an author to fame as an architect, and I in- 
 sert Congreve, despite the reflection that the ghost 
 of that writer would daintily protest against it if he 
 could. When Voltaire called upon him, in London, 
 the Frenchman intimated that his visit was to the 
 "author." "I am a gentleman," said Congreve. 
 " Nay," rejoined the former, " had you been only a 
 gentleman, you would never have received a visit 
 from me at all." 
 
 Let me here repeat the names: Davenant, Dry- 
 den, Shirley, Lee, Cowley, Shadwell, Flecknoe, Settle, 
 Crowne, Ravenscroft, Wycherley, Otway, Durfey, 
 Banks, Rymer, Tate, Brady, Southerne, Congreve, 
 Cibber, Dilke, Vanbrugh, Gildon, Farquhar, Dennis, 
 and Rowe. The half dozen in italics were poets 
 laureate. 
 
 196
 
 PROFESSIONAL AUTHORS 197 
 
 All of them were sons of "gentlemen," save three, 
 Davenant, Cowley, and Dennis, whose sires were, 
 respectively, a vintner, a hatter, and a saddler. The 
 sons, however, received a collegiate education. Cow- 
 ley distinguished himself at Cambridge, but Dave- 
 nant left Oxford without a degree, and from the 
 former university Dennis was expelled, in March, 
 1680, "for assaulting and wounding Sir Glenham 
 with a sword." 
 
 Besides Cowley and Dennis, we are indebted to 
 Cambridge for Dryden, Lee, and Rymer. From 
 Oxford University came Davenant, and Settle, 
 degreeless as Davenant, with Shirley, whose mole 
 on his cheek had rendered him ineligible, in Laud's 
 eyes, for ordination ; Wycherley, Otway, Southerne, 
 and Dilke. Dublin University yields Tate and 
 Brady; and better fruit still, Southerne, Congreve, 
 who went to Ireland at an early age, and Farquhar. 
 Douay gave us Gildon, and we are not proud of the 
 gift. 
 
 Lee, Otway, and Tate were sons of clergymen. 
 Little Crowne's father was an Independent minister in 
 Nova Scotia, and Crowne himself laid claim, fruit- 
 lessly, to a vast portion of the territory there un- 
 justly made over by the English Government to the 
 French. Gibber was an artist, on the side of his 
 father the statuary, and a "gentleman" by his 
 mother. 
 
 It may be said of a good number of these gentle- 
 men that idleness and love of pleasure made them 
 dramatic poets. Shadwell, Raven scroft, Wycherley, 
 Durfey, Banks, Southerne, Congreve, and Rowe, were 
 all apprenticed to the law ; but the study was one
 
 198 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 too dull for men of their vivacious temperament, and 
 they all turned from it in disgust. According to 
 their success, so were they praised or blamed. 
 
 The least successful dramatists on the above list 
 were the most presumptuous of critics. Rymer, who 
 was wise enough to stick to the law while he endeav- 
 oured to turn at least Melpomene to good account, 
 tried to pursuade the public that Shakespeare was 
 even of less merit than it was the fashion to assign 
 to him. In 1678, Rymer boldly asserted that "in 
 the neighing of a horse as the growling of a mastiff, 
 there is a meaning ; there is as lively expression, and, 
 may I say, more humanity than many times in the 
 tragical flights of Shakespeare." He says, that "no 
 woman bred out of a pigsty could talk so meanly as 
 Desdemona," in that tragedy which Rymer calls "a 
 bloody farce without salt or savour." Of Brutus and 
 Caesar, he says Shakespeare has depicted them as 
 "Jack Puddins." To show how much better he un- 
 derstood the art, Rymer published, in 1678, the 
 tragedy he could not get represented, " Edgar, or 
 the English Monarch." He professes to imitate the 
 ancients, and his tragedy is in rhyme ; he accuses 
 Shakespeare of anachronisms, and his Saxon princess 
 is directed to " pull off her patches ! " The author 
 was ambitious enough to attempt to supersede Shake- 
 speare, and he pooh-poohed John Milton by speaking 
 of "Paradise Lost" as "a thing which some people 
 were pleased to call a poem." 
 
 Dennis was not quite so audacious as this. He 
 was a better critic than the author of the " Fcedera," 
 and a more voluminous writer, or rather adapter, of 
 dramatic pieces. He spoke, however, of Tasso, as
 
 PROFESSIONAL AUTHORS 199 
 
 compassionately as the village painter did of Titian ; 
 but his usefulness was acknowledged by the commen- 
 tator, who remarked that men might construct good 
 plays by following his precepts and avoiding his ex- 
 amples. Boyer has said something similar of Gildon, 
 who was a critic as well as a dramatist namely, 
 " he wrote an ' English Art of Poetry,' which he had 
 practised himself very unsuccessfully in his dramatic 
 performances." 
 
 Cowley, although he is now little remembered as a 
 dramatic writer, was among the first who seized the 
 earliest opportunity after the Restoration to set up as 
 playwrights ; but Cowley failed, and was certainly 
 mortified at his failure. He retrimmed a play of his 
 early days, the " Guardian," and called it the " Cutter 
 of Coleman Street." All there is broad farce, in 
 which the Puritan "congregation of the spotless" is 
 coarsely ridiculed, and cavalierism held up to admira- 
 tion. The audience condemned the former as " pro- 
 fane," and Cowley's cavaliers were found to be such 
 scamps that he was suspected of disloyalty. Gentle 
 as he was by nature, Cowley was irritable under 
 criticism. " I think there was something of faction 
 against it," he says, "by the early appearance of 
 some men's disapprobation before they had seen 
 enough of it to build their dislike upon their judg- 
 ment." " Profane ! " exclaims Abraham, with a 
 shudder, and declares it is enough to " knock a man 
 down." Is it profane, he asks, " to deride the 
 hypocrisy of those men whose skulls are not yet 
 bare upon the gates since the public and just pun- 
 ishment of it ? " namely, profanity. Thus were the 
 skulls of the Commonwealth leaders tossed up in
 
 200 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 4 
 
 comedy. He adds, in a half saucy, half deprecatory 
 sort of way, that "there is no writer but may fail 
 sometimes in point of wit, and it is no less frequent 
 for the auditors to fail in point of judgment." Never- 
 theless, he had humbly asked favour at the hands of 
 the critics when his piece was first played, in these 
 words : 
 
 ' Gentlemen critics of Argier, 
 For your own int'rest, I'd advise ye here, 
 To let this little forlorn hope go by 
 Safe and untouch'd. ' That must not be ! ' you'll cry. 
 If ye be wise, it must ; I'll tell ye why. 
 There are 7, 8, 9, stay, there are behind 
 Ten plays at least, which wait but for a wind 
 And the glad news that we the enemy miss ; 
 And those are all your own, if you spare this. 
 Some are but new-trimm'd up, others quite new, 
 Some by known shipwrights built, and others too 
 By that great author made, whoe'er he be, 
 That styles himself ' Person of Quality.' " 
 
 The " Cutter " rallied a little, and then was laid 
 aside ; but some of its spars were carried off by later 
 gentlemen, who have piqued themselves on their 
 originality. Colonel Jolly's advice to the bully, 
 Cutter, if he would not be known, to " take one more 
 disguise at last, and put thyself in the habit of a 
 gentleman," has been quoted as the wit of Sheridan, 
 who took his Sir Anthony Absolute from Truman, 
 Senior. And when Cowley made Aurelia answer to 
 the inquiry, if she had looked in Lucia's eye, that she 
 had, and that "there were pretty babies in it," he 
 little thought that there would rise a Tom Moore to 
 give a turn to the pretty idea and spoil it, as he has 
 done, in the " Impromptu," in " Little's Poems."
 
 PROFESSIONAL AUTHORS 201 
 
 One of the most remarkable circumstances in 
 Cowley's character, considering how he distinguished 
 himself at college, is that he never thoroughly under- 
 stood the rules of grammar ; and that in seriously 
 setting up for a dramatic author, he took, like Dry- 
 den, the course in which he acquired the least honour. 
 When Charles II., on hearing of Cowley's death, de- 
 clared that he had not left a better man behind him 
 in England, the king was, assuredly, not thinking of 
 the poet as a dramatist. 
 
 Several of Cowley's contemporaries, who were con- 
 sidered better men by some judges, were guilty of 
 an offence from which he was entirely free. That 
 offence consisted in their various attempts to im- 
 prove Shakespeare, by lowering him to what they 
 conceived to be the taste of the times. Davenant 
 took "Measure for Measure," and "Much Ado 
 About Nothing," and manipulated them into one 
 absurd comedy, the " Law Against Lovers." He 
 subsequently " improved" " Macbeth " and " Julius 
 Caesar ; " and Dry den, who with at least some show of 
 reason rearranged "Troilus and Cressida," united with 
 Davenant in a sacrilegious destruction of all that is 
 beautiful in the " Tempest." Nat. Lee, who was 
 accounted mad, had at least sense enough to refrain 
 from marring Shakespeare. Shadwell corrected the 
 great poet's view of " Timon of Athens," which, as 
 he not too modestly observed, he "made into a 
 play ; " but, with more modesty in the epilogue, he 
 asked for forgiveness for his own part, for the sake 
 of the portion that was Shakespeare's. Crowne, 
 more impudently, remodelled two parts of " Henry 
 VI.," with some affectation of reverence for the
 
 202 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 original author, and a bold assertion of his own origi- 
 nal merits with regard to some portions of the play. 
 Crowne's originality is shown in making Clifford 
 swear like a drunken tapster, and in affirming that a 
 king is a king sacred, and not to be even thought 
 ill of, let him be never so hateful a miscreant. 
 Ravenscroft, in his " Titus Andronicus," only piled 
 the agony a little more solidly and comically, and can 
 be hardly said to have thereby molested Shakespeare. 
 There was less excuse for Otway, who, not caring to 
 do as he pleased with a doubtful play, ruthlessly 
 seized " Romeo and Juliet," stripped the lovers of 
 their romance, clapped them into a classical costume, 
 and converted the noble but obstinate houses of 
 Capulet and Montague into riotous followers of Marius 
 and Sylla Caius Marius the younger wishing he 
 were a glove upon the hand of Lavinia Metella, and a 
 sententious Sulpitius striving in vain to be as light 
 and sparkling as Mercutio. Tate's double rebuke to 
 Shakespeare, in altering his " King Lear," and " Co- 
 riolanus," was a small offence compared with Otway's 
 assault. He undertook, as he says, to " rectify what 
 was wanting ; " and accordingly, he abolishes the 
 faithful fool, makes a pair of silly lovers of Edgar 
 and Cordelia, and converts the solemn climax into 
 comedy, by presenting the old king and his matchless 
 daughter, hand in hand, alive and merry, as the cur- 
 tain descends. Tate smirkingly maintained that he 
 wrought into perfection the rough and costly material 
 left by Shakespeare. " In my humble opinion," said 
 Addison, " it has lost half its beauty ; " and yet 
 Tate's version kept its place for many years ! 
 though not so long as Gibber's version of " Richard
 
 PROFESSIONAL AUTHORS 303 
 
 III.," which was constructed out of Shakespeare, 
 with more regard for the actor than respect for the 
 author. 
 
 In the last year of the century, the last attempt to 
 improve that inefficient poet was made by Gildon, 
 who produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields his idea of 
 what " Measure for Measure " should be, by omitting 
 all the comic characters, introducing music and danc- 
 ing, transposing incidents, adding much nonsense of 
 his own to that of Davenant, and sprinkling all with 
 an assortment of blunders, amusing enough to make 
 some compensation for the absence of the comic 
 characters in the original play. 
 
 It seemed to be the idea of these men, that it were 
 wise to reduce Shakespeare to the capacities of those 
 who could appreciate him. There were unhappy per- 
 sons thus afflicted. Even Mr. Pepys speaks of 
 "Henry VIII." as "a simple thing, made up of a 
 great many patches." The "Tempest," he thinks, 
 " has no great wit but yet good, above ordinary 
 plays." "Othello" was to him "a mean thing," 
 compared with the last new comedy by another 
 author. " Twelfth Night," " one of the weakest plays 
 I ever saw on the stage." "Macbeth," he liked or 
 disliked, according to the humour of the hour ; but 
 there was a " divertissement " in it, which struck him 
 as being a droll thing in tragedy, but in this case 
 proper and natural ! Finally, he records, in 1662, of 
 the "Midsummer-Night's Dream," which he "had 
 never seen before, nor ever shall again," that "it is 
 the most insipid, ridiculous play that I ever saw 
 in my life." 
 
 Of the characteristics of the chief of these dram-
 
 204 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 atists, it may be said, first of Davenant, that, if he 
 was quick of fancy and careful in composition, the 
 result is not answerable to the labour expended on it. 
 One of the pleasantest features about Dryden was, 
 that as he grew old, he increased in power ; but his 
 heart was untouched by his own magic, and he was 
 but a cold reader of the best of his own works. Lee, 
 as tender and impassioned as he is often absurd and 
 bombastic, was an exquisite reader of what he wrote, 
 his heart acknowledging the charm. Shadwell's 
 characters have the merit of being well conceived, 
 and strongly marked ; and Shirley (a poet belonging 
 to an earlier period) has only a little above the meas- 
 ure of honour due to him, when he is placed on a 
 level with Fletcher. Crowne is more justly placed 
 in the third rank of dramatists; but he had origi- 
 nality, lacking the power to give it effect. Ravens- 
 croft had neither invention nor expression ; yet he 
 was a most prolific writer, a caricaturist, but without 
 truth or refinement ; altogether unclean. Wycherley, 
 on the other hand, was admirable for the epigram- 
 matic turn of his stage conversations, the aptness of 
 his illustrations, the acuteness of his observation, the 
 richness of his character-painting, and the smartness 
 of his satire ; in the indulgence or practice of all 
 which, however, the action of the drama is often 
 impeded, that the audience may enjoy a shower of 
 sky-rockets. 
 
 Pope said that Wycherley was inspired by the 
 Muses with the wit of Plautus. He had, indeed, 
 "Plautus's wit," and an obscenity rivalling that of 
 " Curculio ; " but he had none o"f the pathos which 
 is to be found in the "Rudens." But Wycherley
 
 PROFESSIONAL AUTHORS 205 
 
 was also described as having the " art of Terence and 
 Menander's fire." If, by the first, Pope meant skill 
 in invention of plot, Wycherley surpassed the Cartha- 
 ginian ; and as to " Menander's fire," in Wycherley 
 it was no purifying fire ; and Wesley was not likely 
 to illustrate a sermon by a quotation from Wycherley, 
 as St. Paul did by citing a line from Menander. 
 
 We are charmed by the humour of Wycherley; 
 but after that, posterity disagrees with Pope's verdict. 
 We are not instructed by the sense of Wycherley, 
 nor swayed by his judgment, nor warmed honestly 
 by his spirit ; his unblushing profligacy ruins all. 
 But if his men and women are as coarse as Etherege's 
 or Sedley's, they are infinitely more clever people ; 
 so clever, indeed, that Sheridan has not been too 
 proud to borrow "good things" from some of them. 
 Wycherley is perhaps more natural and consistent 
 than Congreve, whose Jeremy speaks like an oracle, 
 and is as learned, though not so nasty as his master. 
 It may be, that for a man to enjoy Congreve' s wit, 
 he should be as witty as Congreve. To me, it seems 
 to shine at best but as a brilliant on a dirty finger. 
 As for his boasted originality, Valentine and Trap- 
 bois are Don Juan and M. Dimanche ; and as for 
 Valentine, as the type of a gentleman, his similes 
 smack more of the stable-yard than the drawing- 
 room ; and there is more of impertinent prattle 
 generally among his characters than among those of 
 Wycherley. His ladies are a shade more elegant 
 than those of the latter poet ; but they are mere 
 courtesans, brilliant, through being decked with 
 diamonds ; but not a jot the more virtuous or attract- 
 ive on that account. Among the comedy-writers
 
 206 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 of this half century, however, Congreve and Wycher- 
 ley stand supreme ; they were artists ; too many of 
 their rivals or successors were but coarse daubers. 
 
 In coarseness of sentiment the latter could not go 
 beyond their prototypes ; and in the expression of it, 
 they had neither the wit of their greatest, nor 
 the smartness of their less famous masters. This 
 coarseness dates, however, from earlier days than 
 those of the Restoration ; and Dryden, who remem- 
 bered the immorality of Webster's comedies, seems 
 to have thought that the Restoration was to give the 
 old grossness to the stage, as well as a new king to 
 the country. It is, nevertheless, certain that a large 
 portion of the public protested against this return to 
 an evil practice, and hissed his first piece, "The 
 Wild Gallant," played in the little theatre in Vere 
 Street, Drury Lane, in 1662. "It was not indecent 
 enough for them," said the poet, who promised "not 
 to offend in the way of modesty again." His " Kind 
 Keeper, or Mr. Limberham," under which name the 
 Duke of Lauderdale is said to have been satirised, 
 and which Dryden held to be his best comedy, was 
 utterly condemned. " Ah ! " said he, " it was damned 
 by a cabal of keepers ! " It never occurred to him 
 that the public might prefer wit to immorality. Long 
 before, he had written an unseemly piece, called 
 " The Rival Ladies," he seasoned it in what he main- 
 tained was the taste of the town, and in a prologue 
 prologues then were often savagely defiant of the 
 opinions of the audience, asserted his own judg- 
 ment by saying : 
 
 He's bound to please, not to write well, and knows 
 There is a mode in plays as well as clothes."
 
 PROFESSIONAL AUTHORS 207 
 
 I do not know how true it may be that Dryden, 
 the coarsest of dramatic writers, was " the modestest 
 of men in conversation ; " but I have small trust in 
 the alleged purity of a writer who stooped to gratify 
 the baser feelings of an audience, according to their 
 various degrees ; who could compose for one class 
 the filthy dish served up in his " Wild Gallant," and 
 for another the more dangerous, if more refined, fare 
 for youthful palates, so carefully manipulated in the 
 Alexis and Caelia song, in his " Marriage a la Mode." 
 
 We must not forget, indeed, that the standard of 
 morals was different at that time from what it is now. 
 Later in the half century, Jeremy Collier especially 
 attacked Congreve and Wycherley, as men who 
 applied their natural gifts to corrupt instead of purify 
 the stage. The public, too, were scandalised at pas- 
 sages in Congreve's " Double Dealer," a comedy of 
 which the author said "the mechanical part was 
 perfect." The play was not a success, and the fault 
 was laid to its gross innuendoes, and its plainer in- 
 decency. " I declare," says the author, in the pref- 
 ace, "that I took a particular care to avoid it, and 
 if they find any, it is of their own making, for I did 
 not design it to be so understood." 
 
 This point, on which the author and the public 
 were at issue, proves that on the part of the latter 
 the standard was improving for Congreve is deep 
 in the mire before the first scene is over. He had 
 looked for censure for other offence, and says in his 
 usual lofty manner with the critics: "I would not 
 have anybody imagine that I think this play without 
 its faults, for I am conscious of several, and ready 
 to own 'em ; but it shall be to those who are able to
 
 208 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 find 'em out." This is not ill said. For the critics 
 there was at least as much contempt as fear. In 
 "The Country Wife," Wycherley speaks of "the 
 most impudent of creatures, an ill poet, or what is 
 yet more impudent, a second-hand critic ! " The 
 less distinguished writers were, of course, severer 
 still against the critics. 
 
 In later years, Sheridan expressed the greatest 
 contempt for such part of the public as found that 
 the grossness of Congreve was not compensated for 
 by his wit. Sheridan avowed that Congreve must 
 be played unmutilated or be shelved. He compared 
 his great predecessor to a horse whose vice is cured 
 at the expense of his vigour. 
 
 Sheridan must, nevertheless, have felt that he was 
 in error with regard to these old authors. In his 
 " Trip to Scarborough," which is an entire recasting 
 of Vanbrugh's " Relapse," he makes Loveless (Smith) 
 say, " It would surely be a pity to exclude the pro- 
 ductions of some of our best writers for want of a 
 little wholesome pruning, which might be effected 
 by any one who possessed modesty enough to be- 
 lieve that we should preserve all we can of our 
 deceased authors, at least, till they are outdone by 
 the living ones." 
 
 Dryden said of Congreve's " Double Dealer," that 
 though it was censured by the greater part of the 
 town, it was approved of by those best qualified to 
 judge. The people who had a sense of decency 
 were derided by Dryden ; they were angry, he insin- 
 uated, only because the satire touched them nearly. 
 Applying the grossest terms to women, in a letter 
 to Walsh, he protests that they are incensed because
 
 PROFESSIONAL AUTHORS 209 
 
 Congreve exposes their vices, and that the gallants 
 are equally enraged because their vices, too, are 
 exposed ; but even if it were true that Congreve 
 copied from nature, it is also true that he laughs 
 with his vicious and brilliant bad men and women, 
 makes a joke of vice, and never attempts to correct it. 
 
 Dryden, as an erst Westminster boy and Cambridge 
 man, may have felt some annoyance on the exposure 
 of his false quantity in the penultimate of " Cleom- 
 enes," but to a pert, coffee-house fop, who pre- 
 sumed to review his tragedy of that name, he could 
 deliver a crushing reply. In that play Cleomenes 
 virtuously resists the blandishments of Cassandra. 
 " Had I been left alone with a young beauty," said a 
 stripling critic to glorious John, " I would not have 
 spent my time like your Spartan." "That, sir," said 
 Dryden, " perhaps is true ; but give me leave to tell 
 you, you are no hero ! " Good as this is, Lee said 
 even a better thing to the coxcomb who visited him 
 in Bedlam, during Lee's four years' sojourn there. 
 " It is an easy thing," observed this fellow, " to 
 write like a madman." "No," answered Lee, "it 
 is not an easy thing to write like a madman ; but 
 it is very easy to write like a fool." 
 
 Dryden, however, could criticise himself with 
 justness. He confessed that he was not qualified to 
 write comedies. He saw, too, the defects in his 
 tragedies. He was ashamed of his " Tyrannic Love," 
 and laughed at the rant and fustian of his Maximin. 
 He allowed that in his " Conquest of Granada " the 
 sublimity burst into burlesque, and he could censure 
 the extravagance of Almanzer as freely as he did 
 the bombast of Maximin. Still he was uneasy under
 
 210 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 censure ; he was disappointed at the reception given 
 to his " Assignation," and complained bitterly of the 
 critics, especially of Settle. His best defender was 
 Charles II. Some courtiers ventured to wonder at 
 the king going so often to see "The Spanish Friar," 
 as the piece was a wholesale robbery. " Odds fish ! " 
 exclaimed Charles, " select me another such a comedy, 
 and I'll go and see it as often as I do 'The Spanish 
 Friar.' " " All for Love " is Dryden's most care- 
 fully written play, and the author repeatedly de- 
 clared that the scene in Act I, between Anthony and 
 Venditius, was superior to anything he had ever 
 composed. 
 
 Dryden attributed whatever merit he had as a 
 writer of prose to having studied the works of Tillot- 
 son, and the prelate, it will be remembered, owed 
 some of his graces of delivery to Betterton. In his 
 comedies, Dryden was the encourager, not the scour- 
 ger, of the vice ; and yet he could warmly approve 
 the purity of Southerne, when Southerne chose to be 
 pure, and acknowledged that it were as politic to 
 silence vicious poets as seditious preachers. If 
 there were few good poets in his day, Dryden sees 
 the cause in the turbulence of the times ; and if 
 people loved the stilted nonsense of heroic tragedies, 
 it was simply, he says, because " the fashion was set 
 them by the court." To court protection, he himself 
 owed much, and he states, what one may smile at 
 now, that the king's kindness, in calling the " Maiden 
 Queen " his play, that singular piece, in which 
 there are eight women and three men, saved the 
 drama from the malice of the poet's enemies. There 
 is no such privilege for poets, in our days !
 
 PROFESSIONAL AUTHORS 21 1 
 
 Had Shadwell, who left the law to find a livelihood 
 by literature, not been a Whig, we should have 
 heard less of him in parallels or contrasts with Dry- 
 den. Of his dramatic pieces, amounting to about 
 a dozen and a half, there is scarcely one that does 
 not please more in perusal than any by the poet 
 of the greater name, always excepting Dryden's 
 " Love for Love." Shadwell's " Squire of Alsatia," 
 " Bury Fair," " Epsom Wells," and some others, 
 were necessarily favourites with his public, as they 
 are good character comedies, brisk with movement 
 and incident. For attacking Dryden's " Duke of 
 Guise," Dryden pilloried the assailant for ever, as 
 " Mac Flecnoe ; " but when he says that " Shadwell 
 never deviates into sense," he has as little foundation 
 for his assertion as he has for his contempt of Wil- 
 mot, when he says in the "Essay upon Satire," 
 " Rochester I despise for want of wit." Rochester 
 may have praised Shadwell because he hated Dry- 
 den ; but Dryden's aspersions on the other two spring 
 decidedly more from his passion than his judgment. 
 To Shadwell was given the laureateship of which 
 Dryden was deprived. The latter would have borne 
 the deprivation better if the laurel crown had fallen 
 on another head, as he sings to Congreve : 
 
 Oh that your brows my laurel had sustained ; 
 Well had I been depos'd, if you had reigned J " 
 
 In one respect, Dryden was no match at all for 
 Shadwell; and, indeed, he has, inadvertently, con- 
 fessed as much. When speaking of his incapacity 
 for writing comedy, he says, "I want that gaiety
 
 212 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 of humour which is required in it ; my conversation 
 slow and dull ; my humour saturine and reserved. 
 In short, I am none of those who endeavour to break 
 jests in company, and endeavour to make repartees ; 
 so that those who decry my comedies do me no 
 injury, except it be in point of profit ; reputation in 
 them is the last thing to which I shall pretend." 
 This is the picture of a dull man, of which Shadwell, 
 whose comedies, to say the least of them, have as 
 much merit as Dryden's, was the exact opposite. 
 He was a most brilliant talker ; and Rochester re- 
 marked of him that even, had Shadwell burnt all he 
 wrote, and only printed all he spoke, his wit and 
 humour would be found to exceed that of any other 
 poet. 
 
 We come, however, to a greater than Shadwell, in 
 Sir John Vanbrugh, who belongs to two centuries, 
 and who was a man of many occupations, but a 
 dramatist by predilection. He was architect, poet, 
 wit, herald ; he stole some of his plots ; and he sold 
 his office of Clarencieux, to which he had been ap- 
 pointed, because he was a successful playwright. 
 He had humour, and was exceedingly coarse ; but, 
 says Schlegel, " under Queen Anne, manners became 
 again more decorous ; and this may be easily traced in 
 the comedies. In the series of English comic poets, 
 Wycherley, Congreve, Farquhar, Vanbrugh, Steele, 
 Gibber, etc., we may perceive something like a 
 gradation from the most unblushing indecency to 
 a tolerable degree of modesty." This, however, is 
 only partly true ; and Schlegel himself remarks in 
 the same page, " that after all we know of the licen- 
 tiousness of manners under Charles II., we are still
 
 PROFESSIONAL AUTHORS 213 
 
 lost in astonishment at the audacious ribaldry of 
 Wycherley and Congreve." 
 
 Of Vanbrugh's ten or eleven plays, that which has 
 longest kept the stage is the "Relapse," still acted, 
 in its altered form, by Sheridan, as the "Trip to 
 Scarborough." This piece was produced at the 
 Theatre de 1'Odeon, in Paris, in the spring of 1862, 
 as a posthumous comedy of Voltaire's ! It was 
 called the " Comte de Boursoufle," and had a " run." 
 The story ran with it that Voltaire had composed it 
 in his younger days for private representation, that it 
 had been more than once played in the houses of his 
 noble friends, under various titles, that he had then 
 locked it up, and that the manuscript had only re- 
 cently been discovered by the lucky individual who 
 persuaded the manager of the Odeon to produce it 
 on his stage ! The bait took. All the French 
 theatrical world in the capital flocked to the Fau- 
 burg St. Germain to witness a new play by Vol- 
 taire. Critics examined the plot, philosophised on its 
 humour, applauded its absurdities, enjoyed its wit, 
 and congratulated themselves on the circumstances 
 that the Voltairean wit especially was as enjoyable 
 then as in the preceding century ! Of the author- 
 ship they had no doubt whatever ; for, said they, if 
 Voltaire did not write this piece, who could have 
 written it ? The reply was given at once from this 
 country ; but when the mystification was exposed, 
 the French critics gave no sign of awarding honour 
 where honour was due, and probably this translation 
 of the " Relapse " may figure in future French edi- 
 tions as an undoubted work by Voltaire ! 
 
 On looking back upon the names of these authors
 
 214 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 by profession, the brightest still is Otway's, of whom 
 his critical biographers have said that, in tragedy, 
 few English poets ever equalled him. His come- 
 dies are certainly detestable ; but of his tragedies 
 " Venice Preserved " alone is ever now played. The 
 "Orphan" is read; " Alcibiades," "Don Carlos," 
 " Titus and Berenice," are all forgotten. Successful 
 as he is in touching the passions, and eminently so in 
 dealing with ardent love, Otway, I think, is inferior 
 to Lee, occasionally, in the latter respect. Of Lee, 
 Mrs. Siddons entertained the greatest admiration, 
 notwithstanding his bombast, and she read his " Theo- 
 dosius, or the Force of Love," with such feeling as 
 to at once wring sighs from the heart and tears from 
 the eyes. She saw in Lee's poetry a very rare 
 quality, or, as Campbell remarks, " a much more 
 frequent capability for stage effect than a mere 
 reader would be apt to infer from the superabun- 
 dance of the poet's extravagance." Let it not be 
 forgotten that Addison accuses Lee and Shakespeare 
 of a spurious sublimity ; and he adds, that " in these 
 authors, the affectation of greatness often hurts the 
 perspicuity of style ! " 
 
 The professional authors were not equally success- 
 ful. Davenant achieved a good estate, and was 
 buried in Westminster Abbey, like a gentleman. 
 Dryden, with less to bequeath, was interred in the 
 same place, without organ or ceremony, two choris- 
 ters walking before the body, candle in hand, and 
 singing an ode of Horace, like a poet. His vic- 
 tim, Tom Shadwell, acquired wealth, fairly ; he lies 
 in Chelsea Church, but his son raised a monument 
 to his memory in the abbey, that he might be in thus
 
 PROFESSIONAL AUTHORS 215 
 
 much as great a man as his satirist. Congreve, too, 
 is there, after enjoying a greater fortune than the 
 others together had ever built up, and leaving 
 ; 1 0,000 of it to Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, 
 who so valued the " honour and pleasure of his com- 
 pany," when living, that, as the next best thing, she 
 sat of an evening with his " wax figure " after he 
 was dead. Among the dead there, also, rest Gibber, 
 Vanbrugh, and Rowe, of whom the first, too care- 
 less of his money affairs, died the poorest man. 
 
 Better men than either of the last, sleep in hum- 
 bler graves. Poor Nat. Lee, tottering homeward 
 from the Bull and Harrow on a winter's night, and 
 with more punch under his belt than his brain could 
 bear, falls down in the snow, near Duke Street, Lin- 
 coln's Inn Fields, and is dead when he is picked up. 
 He is shuffled away to St. Clement's Danes. If Lee 
 died tipsy, outside a public house, Otway died half- 
 starved, within one, at the Bull, on Tower Hill. The 
 merits of Lee and Otway might have carried them 
 to Westminster, but their misfortunes barred the 
 way thither. Almost as unfortunate, Settle died, 
 after hissing in a dragon at Bartholomew Fair, a 
 recipient of the charity of the Charterhouse. Crowne 
 died in distress, just as he hoped his " Sir Courtley 
 Nice " would have placed him at his ease. Wy crier- 
 ley, with less excuse, died more embarrassed than 
 Crowne, or would have done so had he not robbed 
 his young wife of her portion, made it over to his 
 creditors, and left her little wherewith to bury him 
 in the churchyard in Co vent Garden. Two other 
 poets, who passed away unencumbered by a single 
 splendid shilling, rest in St. James's, Westminster,
 
 2i6 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Tom Durfey and Bankes. Careless, easy, free, and fud- 
 dling Tate died in the sanctuary of the Mint, and St. 
 George's, South wark, gave him a few feet of earth ; 
 while Brady pushed his way at court to preferment, 
 and died a comfortable pluralist and chaplain to 
 Caroline, Princess of Wales. Farquhar, with all his 
 wit, died a broken-hearted beggar, at the age of 
 thirty-seven ; and Dennis, who struggled forty years 
 longer with fortune, came to the same end, utterly 
 destitute of all but the contemptuous pity of his foes, 
 and the insulting charity of Pope. 
 
 I think that of the whole brotherhood, Southerne, 
 after he left the army, and had sown his wild oats, 
 was the most prudent and not the least successful. 
 He was a perfect gentleman ; he did not lounge 
 away his days or nights in coffee-houses or taverns, 
 but, after labour, cultivated friendship in home 
 circles, where virtue and moderate mirth sat at the 
 hearth. In his bag-wig, his black velvet dress, his 
 sword, powder, brilliant buckles, and self-possession, 
 Southerne charmed his company, wherever he visited, 
 even at fourscore. He kept the even tenor of his 
 way, owing no man anything ; never allowing his 
 nights to be the marrer of his mornings ; and at six 
 and eighty carrying a bright eye, a steady hand, a 
 clear head, and a warm heart wherewith to calmly 
 meet and make surrender of all to the Inevitable 
 Angel. 
 
 As Southerne originally wrote "Oronooko," that 
 tragedy could not now be represented. The mixture 
 of comic scenes with tragic is not its worst fault. 
 His comedies are of no worth whatever, except as 
 they illustrate the manners and habits of his times.
 
 PROFESSIONAL AUTHORS 217 
 
 They more closely resemble those of Ravenscroft 
 than of Congreve or Wycherley. His " Sir Anthony 
 Love " was successful ; it is impossible to conjecture 
 wherefore. It has not a wise sentiment or a happy 
 saying in it ; and all to be learned from it is, that 
 Englishmen, when abroad, in those days, used to 
 herd together in self-defence, against being cheated ; 
 that they were too wise to learn anything by travel ; 
 and were fond of passing themselves off as having 
 made a campaign. As Cowley anticipated Moore, 
 in the " Cutter," so, in " Sir Anthony," has Southerne 
 anticipated Burns. " Of the king's creation," says 
 the supposed Sir Anthony to Count Verola, "you 
 may be ; but he who makes a count, never made a 
 man." There is the same sentiment improved in the 
 well-known lines : 
 
 " A king may mak' a belted knight, 
 
 A marquis, duke, and a' that; 
 But an honest man's aboon his might, 
 Gude faith he canna fa' that." 
 
 Southerne was not more famous for the nicety of 
 his costume than "little starched Johnny Crowne" 
 was for his stiff, long cravat ; or Dryden for his Nor- 
 wich drugget suit, or his gayer dress in later days, 
 when, with sword and Chadrieux wig, he paraded the 
 Mulberry garden with his Mistress Reeve one of 
 that marvellous company of 1672, which writers with 
 long memories used to subsequently say could never 
 be got together again. Ot way's thoughtful eye re- 
 deemed his slovenly dress and his fatness, and seemed 
 to warrant the story of his repenting after his carous- 
 ing. Lee dressed as ill as Otway, but lacked his
 
 2i8 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 contemplative eye, yet excelled him in fair looks, and 
 in a peculiar luxuriance of hair. 
 
 Shaftesbury, in his "Characteristics," shows us 
 how the playhouse authors throned it in coffee- 
 houses, and were worshipped by small wits. There 
 were, however, dramatic authors who never went 
 thither ; and of these, the ladies, I have now to speak.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE DRAMATIC AUTHORESSES 
 
 DURING this half century, there were seven ladies 
 who were more or less distinguished as writers for 
 the stage. These were the virtuous Mrs. Philips, 
 the audacious Ephra Behn, the not less notorious 
 Mrs. Manley, the gentle and learned Mrs. Cockburn, 
 the rather aristocratic Mrs. Boothby (of whom noth- 
 ing is known but that she wrote one play, called 
 " Marcatia," in 1669), fat Mrs. Pix, and that thorough 
 Whig, Mrs. Centlivre. The last four belong also to 
 the beginning of the eighteenth century ; and three 
 at least apologised that they, women as they were, 
 should have ventured to become dramatists. 
 
 The "virtuous Mrs. Philips," of Evelyn, the 
 "matchless Orinda," of Cowley and other poets, 
 translated the " Pompey " and " Horace " of Cor- 
 neille. In those grave pieces, represented at court 
 in the early years of the Restoration, the poetess 
 endeavoured to direct the popular taste, and to cor- 
 rect it also. Had she not died (of smallpox, and in 
 the thirty-third year of her age), she might have set 
 such example to the playwrights as the Bettertons 
 did to the actors ; but her good intentions were 
 frustrated, and her place was unhappily occupied by 
 
 219
 
 220 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 the most shameless woman who ever took pen in 
 hand, designedly to corrupt the public. 
 
 Aphra Behn was a Kentish woman, whose early 
 years were passed at Surinam, where her father, 
 Johnson, had resided, as lieutenant-general After 
 a wild training in that fervid school, she repaired to 
 London, married a Dutchman named Behn, who 
 seems to have straightway disappeared, penetrated, 
 by means of her beauty, to the court of Charles II., 
 and obtained, by means of her wit, an irregular 
 employment at Antwerp, that of a spy. The 
 letters of her Dutch lovers belong to romance ; but 
 there is warrant for the easy freedom of this woman's 
 life. In other respects she was unfortunate. On 
 her return to England, her political reports and 
 prophecies were no more credited than the moni- 
 tions of old, by Cassandra ; so she abandoned Eng- 
 land to its fate, and herself "to pleasure and the 
 muses." 
 
 Her opportunities for good were great, but she 
 abused them all. She might have been an honour 
 to womanhood ; she was its disgrace. She might 
 have gained glory by her labours ; but she chose to 
 reap infamy. Her pleasures were not those which 
 became an honest woman ; and, as for her " Muses," 
 she sat not with them on the slopes of Helicon, but 
 dragged them down to her level, where the Nine and 
 their unclean votary wallowed together in the mire. 
 
 There is no one that equals this woman in down- 
 right nastiness, save Ravenscroft and Wycherley; 
 but the latter of these had more originality of inven- 
 tion and grace of expression. To these writers, and 
 to those of their detestable school, she set a revolting
 
 THE DRAMATIC AUTHORESSES 221 
 
 example. Dryden preceded her, by a little, on the j 
 stage ; but Mrs. Behn's trolloping muse appeared ( 
 there before the other two writers I have mentioned, \ 
 and was still making unseemly exhibition there after 
 the coming of Congreve. With Dryden she vied in 
 indecency, and was not overcome. To all other male 
 writers of her day she served as a provocation and 
 an apology. Intellectually, she was qualified to have 
 led them through pure and bright ways ; but she was 
 a mere harlot, who danced through uncleanness, and 
 dared or lured them to follow. Remonstrancejwi 
 useless wjth_Jhis wanton hussy, ^.s for her private 
 liieTithas found a champion in a female friend, whose 
 precious balsam breaks the head it would anoint. 
 According to this friend, Mrs. Behn had numerous 
 good qualities ; but " she was a woman of sense, and 
 consequently loved pleasure ; " and she was " more 
 gay and free than the modesty of the precise will 
 allow." 
 
 Of Aphra Behn's eighteen plays, produced between 
 1671 and 1696, before which last year, however, 
 she had died, but few are original. They are 
 adaptations from Marlowe, from Wilkins, from Killi- 
 grew, from Brome, from Tatham, from Shirley, from 
 the Italian comedy, from Moliere, and more legiti- 
 mately from the old romances. She adapted skil- 
 fully; and she was never dull. But then, all her 
 vivacity is wasted on filth. When the public sent 
 forth a cry of horror at some of the scenes in her 
 play of " The Lucky Chance," she vindicated herself 
 by asking, " Was she not loyal ? " " Tory to the 
 back bone ; " had she not made the king's enemies 
 ridiculous, in her five-act farces ; and had she not
 
 222 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 done homage to the king by dedicating her " Feigned 
 Courtesans" to Nell Gwyn, and styling that worthy 
 sister of her's in vice and good nature, so perfect 
 a creature as to be something akin to divinity ? 
 
 For Mrs. Manley there was more excuse. That 
 poor daughter of an old royalist had some reason to 
 depict human nature as bad, in man and in woman. 
 The young orphan trusted herself to the guardianship 
 of a seductive kinsman, who married her when he had 
 a wife still living. This first wrong destroyed her, 
 but not her villainous cousin ; and, unfortunately, the 
 woman upon whom the world looked cool incurred 
 the capricious compassion of the Duchess of Cleve- 
 land. When the caprice was over, and Mrs. Manley 
 had only her own resources to rely upon, she scorned 
 the aid offered her by General Tidcombe, and made 
 her first venture for the stage in the tragedy of 
 " Royal Mischief," produced at the Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields Theatre, in 1696. It is all desperate love, of 
 a very bad quality, and indiscriminate murder, relieved 
 by variety in the mode of killing ; one unfortunate 
 gentleman, named Osman, being thrust into a cannon 
 and fired from it, after which his wife, Selima, is said 
 to be 
 
 Gathering the smoking relics of her lord 1 " 
 
 The authoress, in her next venture, in the same 
 year, a comedy, written in a week, and which per- 
 ished in a night, " The Lost Lover," introduced what 
 the public had been taught to appreciate, a virtuous 
 wife. Her other pieces, written at intervals of ten 
 years, were " Almyna," founded on the story of the 
 Caliph who was addicted to marrying one day, and
 
 THE DRAMATIC AUTHORESSES 223 
 
 beheading his wife the next ; and " Lucius," a semi- 
 sacred play, on the supposed first Christian king of 
 Britain both unsuccessful. 
 
 Mrs. Manley survived till 1724. When not under 
 the "protection" of a friend, or in decent mourning 
 for the lovers who died mad for her, she was engaged 
 in composing the " Memoirs of the New Atalantis," 
 a satire against the Whig ministry, the authorship 
 of which she courageously avowed, rather than that 
 the printer and publisher should suffer for her. The 
 Tory ministry which succeeded, employed her pen ; 
 and with Smith's Alderman Barber, he being Tory 
 printer, she resided till her death, mistress of the 
 house, and of the alderman. 
 
 Contemporary with Mrs. Manley was Miss Trotter, 
 the daughter of a Scottish officer, but better known 
 as Mrs. Cockburn, wife and widow of an English 
 clergyman. She was at first a very learned young 
 lady, whose speculations took her to the Church of 
 Rome, from which in later years she seceded. She 
 was but seventeen, when, in 1696, her sentimental 
 tragedy, "Agnes de Castro," was played at Drury 
 Lane. Her career, as writer for the stage, lasted 
 ten years, during which she produced five pieces, all 
 of a sentimental but refined class, illustrating love, 
 friendship, repentance, and conjugal faith. There is 
 some amount of word-spinning in these plays ; and 
 this is well marked by Genest's comment on Mrs. 
 Cockburn's " Revolution of Sweden," namely, that if 
 Constantin, in the third act, had been influenced by 
 common sense, she would have spoiled the remainder 
 of the play. 
 
 Nevertheless, Mrs. Cockburn was a clever woman,
 
 224 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 and kept no dull household, though she there wrote a 
 defence of Locke, while her reverend husband was 
 pursuing an account of the Mosaic deluge. As a 
 metaphysical and controversial writer, she gathered 
 laurels and abuse in her day, for the latter of which 
 she found compensation in the friendship and admira- 
 tion of Warburton. She was a valiant woman, too ; 
 one whom asthma and the ills of life could not deter 
 from labour. But death relieved her from all these, 
 in 1749; and she is remembered in the history of 
 literature as a good and well-accomplished woman ; 
 the very opposite of Mrs. Behn and all her heroines. 
 
 Fat Mrs. Fix enjoyed a certain sort of vogue from 
 1696 to 1709. She came from Oxfordshire, was the 
 daughter of a clergyman, was married to a Mr. Fix, 
 and was a woman of genius, and much flesh. She 
 wrote eleven plays, but not one of them has survived 
 to our time. Her comedies are, however, full of life ; 
 her tragedies more than brimful of loyalty ; later 
 dramatists have not disdained to pick up some of 
 Mrs. Fix's forgotten incidents ; and, indeed, contem- 
 porary playwrights stole her playful lightning, if not 
 her thunder; her plots were not ill-conceived, but 
 they were carried out by inexpressive language, 
 some of her tragedies being in level prose, and some, 
 mixtures of rhyme and blank verse. She herself oc- 
 casionally remodelled an old play, but did not improve 
 it ; while, when she trusted to herself, at least in a 
 farcical sort of comedy, she was bustling and humour- 
 ous. Mrs. Manley, Mrs. Cockburn, and Mrs. Fix 
 were ridiculed in a farce called " The Female Wits," 
 their best endowments satirised, and their peculiarities 
 mimicked. The first and last of those ladies repre-
 
 THE DRAMATIC AUTHORESSES 225 
 
 sented some of their dramas as written by men, a 
 subterfuge to which a greater than either of them 
 was also obliged to resort, namely, Susanna Cent- 
 livre. 
 
 Susanna Freeman was her maiden name. She was 
 the orphan daughter of a stout but hardly dealt with 
 parliamentarian, and of a mother who died too early for 
 the daughter's remembrance. Anthony Hammond is 
 said to have been in love with her, a nephew of Sir 
 Stephen Fox to have married her, and a Captain 
 Carrol to have left her a widow all before she was 
 well out of her teens. Thus she had passed through 
 a school of experience, and to turn it to account, 
 Susanna Carrol began writing for the stage. Writ- 
 ing for and acting on it, for we find her in 1706 
 playing "Alexander the Great" at Windsor, where 
 she also married Mr. Centlivre, Queen Anne's chief 
 cook. 
 
 Of Mrs. Centlivre's nineteen plays, three at least 
 are still well known, the "Busy Body," the "Won- 
 der," and "A Bold Stroke for a Wife." When she 
 offered the first to the players it was her ninth 
 play the actors unanimously denounced it. Wilks, 
 who had hitherto been unaccustomed to the want 
 of straining after wit, the common sense, the unforced 
 sprightliness, the homely nature, for which this piece 
 is distinguished declared that not only would it be 
 " damned," but that the author of it could hardly ex- 
 pect to avoid a similar destiny ; and yet its triumph 
 was undoubted, though cumulative. 
 
 Hitherto the authoress had written a tragi-comedy 
 or two, the comic scenes in which alone gave evidence 
 of strength, but not always of delicacy. She had, in
 
 226 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 others, rtolen wholesale from Moliere and the old 
 English dramatists. She produced a continuation to 
 the "Busy Body," in "Marplot," but we do not care 
 for it ; and it is not till her fourteenth piece, the 
 "Wonder," appeared in 1714, that she again chal- 
 lenges admiration. This, too, is an adaptation ; but it 
 is superior to the " Wrangling Lovers," from which 
 it is partly taken, and which had no such hero as the 
 Don Felix of Wilks. The " Bold Stroke for a Wife " 
 was first played in 1718, when the Tory public had 
 forgiven the author for her satires against them, and 
 the theatrical public her fresh adaptations of old 
 scenes and stories. The " Bold Stroke for a Wife " 
 is entirely her own, and has had a wonderful succes- 
 sion of Colonel Feignwells, from C. Bullock down to 
 Mr. Graham ! This piece, however, was but moder- 
 ately successful ; but it has such vivacity, fun, and 
 quiet humour in it, that it has outlived many a one 
 that began with greater triumph, and in "the real 
 Simon Pure," first acted by Griffin, it has given a 
 proverb to the English language. One other piece, 
 the "Artifice," a five-act farce, played in 1722, con- 
 cludes the list of plays from the pen of this industri- 
 ous and gifted woman. 
 
 Mrs. Centlivre had unobtrusive humour, sayings 
 full of significance rather than wit, wholesome fun in 
 her comic, and earnestness in her serious, characters. 
 Mrs. Centlivre, in her pictures of life, attracts the 
 spectator. There may be, now and then, something, 
 as in Dutch pictures, which had been as well away ; 
 but this apart, all the rest is true, and pleasant, and 
 hearty ; the grouping perfect, the colour faithful, and 
 enduring too despite the cruel sneer of Pope, who,
 
 THE DRAMATIC AUTHORESSES 227 
 
 in the " Life of Curll," sarcastically alludes to her as 
 "the cook's wife in Buckingham Court," in which 
 vicinity to Spring Gardens, Mrs. Centlivre died in 
 1723. 
 
 Such were the characteristics of the principal 
 authors who led, followed, trained, or flattered the 
 public taste of the last half of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, and a few of them of the first part of the century 
 which succeeded. Before we pass onward to the stage 
 of the eighteenth century, let us cast a glance back, 
 and look at the quality of the audiences for whom 
 these poets catered.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE AUDIENCES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 
 
 SPEEDILY after the Restoration, there was no 
 more constant visitor at the theatre than Charles II., 
 with a gay and what is called a gallant gathering. 
 Thus we are arrested by a crowd at the Temple 
 Gate. On the i$th of August, 1661, Charles and 
 the Duke and Duchess of York are leaving the apart- 
 ments of the reader, Sir Henry Finch, with whom 
 they have been dining, and an eager audience is 
 awaiting them in the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, 
 where " The Wits " is to be represented a piece 
 " never yet acted," says Pepys, " with scenes." Two 
 nights later the same piece is playing, and the 
 Queen of Bohemia is there, "brought by my Lord 
 Craven," whom some do not scruple to speak of as 
 the ex-queen's husband. A week later, Charles and 
 " Madame Palmer " were at the theatre in Drury 
 Lane, with the Duke of York and his wife. "My 
 wife," says Pepys, "to her great content, had a full 
 sight of them all the while." The king's Madame 
 Palmer became, in fact, an attraction ; seated be- 
 tween Charles and his brother, Pepys beheld her a 
 few weeks later, when he and his wife escorted Lord 
 Sandwich's young daughters to the theatre, and ob- 
 
 228
 
 AUDIENCES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 229 
 
 tained places close to madame and her double escort. 
 The play was Jonson's " Bartholomew Fair," with 
 the puppets, and all its virulent satire against the 
 Puritans. As Pepys listened and remembered that 
 no one had dared to bring forward this slashing play 
 for the last forty years, he wondered at the audacity 
 of managers now, and grieved that the king should 
 countenance it. But what recked the laughing king, 
 when Puritanism was in the dust, and troops of cava- 
 liers were singing " Up we go ? " 
 
 Occasionally, if Pepys witnesses a play ill-acted, he 
 finds compensation in sitting near some "pretty and 
 ingenious lady." At that time oranges were more 
 costly than pines are now, and to offer one of the 
 former, even to an unknown fair neighbour, was an 
 intimation of a readiness on the part of the presenter 
 to open a conversation. To behold his most sacred 
 Majesty seated in his box was for ever, with Pepys, 
 even a stronger attraction than the eyes or the wit 
 of the fairest and sprightliest of ladies. Again and 
 again he registers a vow to refrain from resorting to 
 the theatre during a certain period, but he no sooner 
 hears of the presence there of his religious and gra- 
 cious king, than he breaks his vow, rushes to the 
 play, perjures himself out of royal courtesy, and next 
 morning writes himself down an ass. 
 
 At the Cockpit in Drury Lane, Charles's consort, 
 Catherine, was exhibited to the English people for 
 the first time, on an autumn afternoon of 1662, when 
 Shirley's " Cardinal " was represented. Pepys, of 
 course, was there too ; and reproduces the scene : 
 "By very good fortune, I did follow four or five 
 gentlemen who were carried to a little private door
 
 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 in a wall, and so crept through a narrow place, and 
 came into one of the boxes next the king's, but 
 so as I could not see the king or queen, but many 
 of the fine ladies, who are not really so hand- 
 some generally, as I used to take them to be, but 
 that they are finely dressed. The company that 
 came in with me into the box were all Frenchmen 
 that could speak no English ; but, Lord, what sport 
 they made to ask a pretty lady that they got among 
 them, that understood both French and English, to 
 make her tell them what the actors said ! " 
 
 Soon after this, in dreary November, there is 
 a crowded audience to greet the king and queen, 
 with whom now appears the Castlemaine, once more, 
 and near her Lucy's Walter's boy, the Duke of Mon- 
 mouth, all beauty and pretty assurance ; and Pepys 
 sees no harm in a company who have come together 
 to witness a comedy whose name might well describe 
 the look and bearing of the outraged queen, namely, 
 the " Scornful Lady." No wonder that, in Decem- 
 ber, at the tragedy of the " Valiant Cid," she did not 
 smile once during the whole play. But nobody pres- 
 ent on that occasion seemed to take any pleasure 
 but what was in the greatness and gallantry of the 
 company. 
 
 That greatness and that gallantry were the idols 
 of the diarist. With what scorn he talks of the 
 audience at the Duke's Theatre a few days later, 
 when the " Siege of Rhodes " was represented. He 
 was ill-pleased. The house was " full of citizens ! " 
 "There was hardly," says the fastidious son of an 
 honest tailor, "a gallant man or woman in the 
 house!" So, in January, 1663, at the same theatre,
 
 AUDIENCES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 231 
 
 he records that "it was full of citizens, and so the 
 less pleasant." The Duke's House was less "gen- 
 teel " than the Cockpit ; but the royal visitors at the 
 latter were not much more refined in their manners 
 than the audience in Lincoln's Inn Fields, or Salis- 
 bury Court. Early in January, 1663, the Duke of 
 York and his wife honoured a play of Killigrew's by 
 their presence, and did not much edify the specta- 
 tors by their conduct. "They did show," writes 
 the immortal journalist, "some impertinent and me- 
 thought unnatural dalliances there, before the whole 
 world, such as kissing of hands, and leaning one upon 
 another." 
 
 But there were worse scenes than these conjugal 
 displays at the King's House. When Pepys was 
 dying to obtain the only prize in all the world he 
 desired, Lady Castlemaine's picture, that bold person 
 was beginning to lose, at once, both her beauty and 
 her place of favour with the king. Pepys was im- 
 mensely grieved, for she was always more to him 
 than the play and players to boot. He had reason, 
 however, to be satisfied that she had not lost her 
 boldness. In January, 1664, the "Indian Queen" 
 was played at the King's House, in Drury Lane. 
 Lady Castlemaine was present before the king arrived. 
 When he entered his box, the countess leaned over 
 some ladies who sat between her and the royal box, 
 and whispered to Charles. Having been thus bold 
 in face of the audience, she arose, left her own box 
 and appeared in the king's, where she deliberately 
 took a place between Charles and his brother. It 
 was not the king alone, but the whole audience with 
 him who were put out of countenance by this cool
 
 232 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 audacity, exhibited to prove that she was not so 
 much out of favour as the world believed. 
 
 What a contrast is presented by the appearance 
 of Cromwell's daughter, Lady Mary, in her box at 
 this same theatre, with her husband, Viscount Falcon- 
 bridge ! Pepys praises her looks and her dress, and 
 suggests a modest embarrassment on her part as the 
 house began to fill, and the admiring spectators began 
 to gaze too curiously on Oliver's loved child ; " she 
 put on her vizard, and so* kept it on all the play, 
 which of late has become a great fashion among the 
 ladies, which hides their whole face." 
 
 Mary Cromwell, modestly masked, was a prettier 
 sight than what Pepys on other occasions describes 
 as " all the pleasure of the play ; " meaning, thereby, 
 the presence of Lady Castlemaine, or of Miss Stew- 
 art, her rival in royal favour, but not her equal in 
 peerless beauty. With these, but in less exalted 
 company than they, we now meet with Nell Gwyn, 
 in front of the house. She is seen gossiping with 
 Pepys, who is ecstatic at the condescension ; or she 
 is blazing in the boxes, prattling with the young and 
 scented fops, and impudently lying across any three 
 of them, that she may converse as she pleases with 
 a fourth. And there is Sir Charles Sedley looking 
 on, smiling with or at the actors of these scenes, 
 among the audience, or sharply and wittily criticising 
 the players on the stage, and the words put into 
 their mouths by the author, or flirting with vizard 
 masks in the pit. Altogether, there is much confu- 
 sion and interruption ; but there is also, occasionally, 
 disturbance of another sort, as when, in June, 1664, 
 a storm of hail and rain broke through the roof of the
 
 AUDIENCES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 233 
 
 King's House, and drove the half-drowned people 
 from the pit in a disorder not at all admired. 
 
 Like Evelyn, Pepys was often at the court plays, 
 but, except with the spectacle of the queen's ladies, 
 and the king's too, for that matter, he found small 
 delight there, the house, although fine, being bad 
 for hearing. This court patronage, public and pri- 
 vate, increased the popularity of the drama, as the 
 vices of the king increased the fashion of being dis- 
 solute ; and when Charles was sadly in need of a 
 collecting of members of Parliament to throw out 
 a bill which very much annoyed him, and was carried 
 against him, he bade the lord chamberlain to scour 
 the play and other houses, where he knew his 
 parliamentary friends were to be found, and to 
 send them down to vote in favour of their graceless 
 master. 
 
 Ladies of quality, and of good character, too, could 
 in those days appear in masks in the boxes, and unat- 
 tended. The vizard had not yet fallen to the disrep- 
 utable. Such ladies as are above designated entered 
 into struggles of wit with the fine gentlemen, banter- 
 ing them unmercifully, calling them by their names, 
 and refusing to tell their own. All this was to the 
 disturbance of the stage, but this battle of the wits 
 was so frequently more amusing than what might 
 be passing for the moment on the stage, that the 
 audience near listened to the disputants rather than 
 to the actors. Sir Charles Sedley was remarkable as 
 a disputant with the ladies, and as a critic of the 
 players. That the overhearing of what was said 
 by the most famous of the box visitors was a pleas- 
 ant pastime of many hearers, is made manifest by
 
 234 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Pepys, who once took his place on "the upper bench 
 next the boxes," and describes it as having "the 
 advantage of seeing and hearing the great people, 
 which may be pleasant when there is good store." 
 
 To no man then living in England did fellowship 
 with people of quality convey such intense delight 
 as to Pepys. "Lord!" he exclaims, in May, 1667, 
 " how it went against my heart to go away from the 
 very door of the Duke's Playhouse, and my Lady 
 Castlemaine's coach, and many great coaches there, 
 to see ' The Siege of Rhodes.' I was very near 
 making a forfeit," he adds, "but I did command 
 myself." 
 
 He was happiest with a baronet like Sir Philip 
 Frowd at his side, and behind him a couple of 
 impertinently pretty actresses, like Pierce and Knipp, 
 pulling his hair, drawing him into gossiping flirta- 
 tions, and inducing him to treat them with fruit. 
 The constant presence of lively actresses in the front 
 of the house was one of the features of the times, 
 and a dear delight to Pepys, who was never weary of 
 admiring their respective beauties. 
 
 Proud as he was of sitting, for the first time in his 
 life, in a box, at four shillings, he still saw the pit 
 occupied by greater men than any around him, par- 
 ticularly on the first night of a new piece. When 
 Etherege's comedy, " She Would if She Could," was 
 first played, in February, 1668, to one of the most 
 crowded, critical, and discontented audiences that had 
 ever assembled in the Duke's House, the pit was 
 brilliant with peers, gallants, and wits. There openly 
 sat Buckingham, and Buckhurst, and Sedley, and the 
 author, with many more ; and there went on, as
 
 AUDIENCES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 235 
 
 the audience waited till the pelting rain outside had 
 ceased to fall, comment and counter-comment on the 
 merits of the piece and of the actors. Etherege found 
 fault with the players, but the public as loudly cen- 
 sured the piece, condemning it as silly and insipid, 
 but allowing it to possess a certain share of wit and 
 roguishness. 
 
 From an entry in the diary for the 2ist of 
 December, 1668, we learn that Lady Castlemaine 
 had a double, who used to appear at the theatre, to 
 the annoyance of my lady, and the amusement of her 
 royal friend. Indeed, there is a group of illustrations 
 of the " front of the stage ; " the house is the duke's, 
 the play "Macbeth." "The king and court there, 
 and we sat just under them and my Lady Castle- 
 maine, 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. 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 a box over the king's and my Lady Castlemaine' s, 
 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." 
 
 To these audiences were presented dramatic pieces 
 of a very reprehensible quality. Charles II. has been 
 more blamed than any other individual, because of 
 this licentiousness of the stage. I have before ven- 
 tured to intimate, that the long accepted idea that 
 the court of Charles II. corrupted English society, 
 and that it did so especially through patronising the 
 licentiousness of poets and the stage, seems to me
 
 236 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 untenable. From of old there had been a corrupt 
 society, and a society protesting against the cor- 
 ruption. Before Charles made his first visit to the 
 theatre, there was lying in Newgate the ex-royalist, 
 but subsequently Puritan poet, George Withers. In 
 the dedication of his "Hallelujah," in 1641, he thus 
 describes the contemporary condition of society : 
 "So innumerable are the foolish and profane songs 
 now delighted in, to the dishonour of our language 
 and religion, that hallelujahs and pious meditations 
 are almost out of use and fashion ; yea, not at private 
 only, but at our public feasts, and civil meetings also, 
 scurrilous and obscene songs are impudently sung, 
 without respecting the reverend presence of matrons, 
 virgins, magistrates, or divines. Nay, sometimes in 
 their despite they are called for, sung, and acted with 
 such abominable gesticulations, as are very offensive 
 to all modest hearers and beholders, and fitting only 
 to be exhibited at the diabolical assemblies of Bac- 
 chus, Venus, or Priapus ! " 
 
 In the collection of hymns, under this title of 
 " Hallelujah," there is a hymn for every condition in 
 and circumstance of life, from the king to the tailor; 
 from a hymn for the use of two ardent lovers, to a 
 spiritual song of grateful resignation " for a widower 
 or a widow deprived of a troublesome yokefellow ! " 
 There is none for the player, but there is this hit at 
 the poets who supplied him with unseemly phrases, 
 and the flattering friends who crowned such bards : 
 
 " Blasphemous fancies are infused, 
 
 All holy new things are expell'd, 
 He that hath most profanely mused, 
 Is famed as having most excelled ;
 
 AUDIENCES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 237 
 
 Such are those poets in these days, 
 Who vent the fumes of lust and wine, 
 
 Then crown each other's heads with bays, 
 As if their poems were divine." 
 
 Against the revived fashion of licentious plays, 
 some of the wisest men among theatrical audiences 
 protested loudly. No man raised his voice with 
 greater urgency than Evelyn. Within six years of 
 the Restoration, he, who was in frequency of play- 
 going only second to Pepys, but as sharp an observer 
 and a graver censor than the Admiralty clerk, ad- 
 dressed a letter to Lord Cornbury on this important 
 subject. The letter was written a few weeks previous 
 to the Lent season of 1665, and the writer mourns 
 over a scandal less allowed in any city of Christen- 
 dom, than in the metropolis of England ; namely, 
 " the frequency of our theatrical pastimes during the 
 indiction of Lent. Here in London," he says, "there 
 were more wicked and obscene plays permitted than 
 in all the world besides. At Paris three days, at 
 Rome two weekly, and at the other cities, Florence, 
 Venice, etc., only at certain jolly periods of the year, 
 and that not without some considerable emolument 
 to the public, while our interludes here are every day 
 alike ; so that the ladies and gallants come reeking 
 from the play late on Saturday night " (was Saturday 
 then a fashionable day for late performances ?) " to 
 their Sunday devotions; and the ideas of the farce 
 possess their fancies to the infinite prejudice of devo- 
 tion, besides the advantages it gives to our reproachful 
 blasphemers." Evelyn, however, does not pursue his 
 statement to a logical exclusion. He proposes to 
 close the houses on Friday and Saturday, or to repre-
 
 238 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 sent plays on these nights only for the benefit of 
 paupers in or out of the workhouses. Remembering 
 rather the actresses who disgraced womanhood, than 
 such an exemplary and reproachless pair as Betterton 
 and his wife, he recommends robbery of the "de- 
 bauched comedians," as he calls them without 
 scruple. What if they be despoiled of a hundred 
 or so a year ? They will still enjoy more than they 
 were ever born to ; and the sacrifice, he quaintly says, 
 will consecrate their scarce allowable impertinences. 
 He adds, with a seriousness which implies his censure 
 of the royal approval of the bad taste which had 
 brought degradation on the stage : " Plays are now 
 become with us a licentious excess and a vice, and 
 need severe censors, that should look as well to their 
 morality as to their lives and numbers." 
 
 This grave and earnest censor, however, allowed 
 himself to be present at stage representations which 
 he condemns. He objects but does not refrain. He 
 witnesses masques at court and says little ; enjoys 
 his play, and denounces the enjoyment, in his diary, 
 when he reaches home. He has as acute an eye on 
 the behaviour of the ladies, especially among the audi- 
 ence, as for what is being uttered on the stage. " I 
 saw the tragedy of ' Horace,' " he tells us, in February, 
 1668, "written by the virtuous Mrs. Phillips, acted 
 before their Majesties. Betwixt each act a masque 
 and antique dance." Then speaking of the audience, 
 where the king's "lady" was wont to outblaze the 
 king's "wife," he adds: "The excessive gallantry 
 of the ladies was infinite : those especially on that 
 . . . Castlemaine, esteemed at 40,000 and more, 
 far outshining the queen." Later in the year he is
 
 AUDIENCES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 239 
 
 at a new play of Dryden's, " with several of my rela- 
 tions." He describes the plot as "foolish and very 
 profane. It afflicted me," he continues, " to see how 
 the stage was degenerated and polluted by the 
 licentious times." 
 
 When forming part of the audience, by invitation 
 of the lord chamberlain, at the court plays, at White- 
 hall, in September, 1666, Evelyn uses as freely his 
 right of judgment. He sat ill at ease in the public 
 theatres, because they were abused, he says, " to an 
 atheistical liberty." The invitation to see Lord 
 Broghill's " Mustapha " played before the king and 
 queen, in presence of a splendid court, was a com- 
 mand. Evelyn attended ; but as he looked around, 
 he bethought him of the London that was lying in 
 charred ruins, and he sorrowingly records his disap- 
 proval of "any such pastime in a time of such judg- 
 ments and calamities." With better times come 
 weaker censures on these amusements ; and the 
 representation of the " Conquest of Granada," at 
 Whitehall, in 1671, wins his admiration for the "very 
 glorious scenes and perspectives, the work of Mr. 
 Streeter, who well understands it." In the following 
 year, although not frequenting court plays, he takes 
 a whole bevy of maids of honour from court to the 
 play. Among them was one of whom he makes 
 especial mention, on account of her many and ex- 
 traordinary virtues, which had gained his especial 
 esteem. This grave maid, among the too vivacious 
 ladies whom Evelyn 'squired to an afternoon's play, 
 was Mistress Blagg, better known to us from Evelyn's 
 graceful sketch of her life, as Mrs. Godolphin. 
 
 Mrs. Blagg was herself not the less a lovely
 
 240 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 actress for being a discreet and virtuous young lady. 
 In 1675 Evelyn saw her act in Crowne's masque- 
 comedy, " Calisto, or the Chaste Nymph." His 
 friend acted in a noble but mixed company, all 
 ladies, namely, the Ladies Mary and Anne, after- 
 ward Queens of England, the Lady Henrietta Went- 
 worth, afterward the evilly impelled favourite of the 
 Duke of Monmouth, and Miss Jennings, subsequently 
 the sharp-witted wife of the great Duke of Marlbor- 
 ough. There were others of less note, with profes- 
 sional actresses to aid them, while a corps de ballet 
 of peers and nymphs of greater or less repute danced 
 between the acts. For the piece or for the interludes 
 Evelyn had less admiration than he had for Mrs. 
 Blagg's splendour. She had about her, he informs 
 us, ^20,000 worth of jewels, of which she lost one 
 worth about 80, borrowed of the Countess of Suf- 
 folk. "The press was so great," he adds, "that it 
 is a wonder she lost no more ; " and the intimation 
 that "The duke" (of York) "made it good," shows 
 that Mrs. Blagg was fortunate in possessing the 
 esteem of that not too liberal prince. The entire 
 stage arrangements at Whitehall were not invariably 
 of a liberal character, and the audiences must have 
 had, on some occasions, an uncourtly aspect ; 
 "people giving money to come in," he writes in this 
 same year, 1675, "which was very scandalous, and 
 never so before at court diversions." 
 
 Of the turbulence of audiences in those days, 
 there are many evidences on record. It was some- 
 times provoked, at others altogether unjustifiable, 
 and always more savage than humourous. In 1669 
 Mrs. Corey gratified Lady Castlemaine by giving an
 
 AUDIENCES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 241 
 
 imitation of Lady Harvey throughout the whole of 
 the part of Sempronia in "Catiline's Conspiracy." 
 Lady Harvey, much excited, had influence enough 
 with her brother, Edward Montagu, lord chamberlain, 
 to induce him to lock Mrs. Corey up for her imperti- 
 nence. On the other hand, Lady Castlemaine had 
 still greater influence with the king ; and not only 
 was Mrs. Corey released, but she was "ordered to 
 act it again worse than ever." Doll Common, as 
 the actress was called, for her ability in playing that 
 part in the " Alchymist," repeated the imitation with 
 the required extravagance, but not without opposi- 
 tion ; for Lady Harvey had hired a number of per- 
 sons, some of whom hissed Doll, while others pelted 
 her with fruit, and the king looked on the while 
 amazed at the contending factions, whose quarrels 
 subsequently brought him much weariness in the 
 settling. 
 
 Then, again, much disturbance often arose from 
 noisy, financial squabbles. It was the custom to 
 return the price of admission to all persons who left 
 the theatre before the close of the first act. Conse- 
 quently many shabby persons were wont to force 
 their way in without paying, on the plea that they 
 did not intend to remain beyond the time limited. 
 Thence much noisy remonstrance on the part of the 
 doorkeepers, who followed them into the house ; and 
 therewith such derangement of the royal comfort, 
 that a special decree was issued commanding pay- 
 ment to be made on entering, but still allowing the 
 patron of the drama to recover his money if he with- 
 drew on or before the close of the first act. 
 
 But there were greater scandals than these. On the
 
 242 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 2d of February, 1679, there is a really awful commo- 
 tion, and imminent peril to house and audience at the 
 duke's theatre. The king's French favourite, the 
 Duchess of Portsmouth, is blazing with rouge, dia- 
 monds, and shamelessness in the most conspicuous 
 seat in the house. Some tipsy gentlemen in the 
 street hard by hear of her wit and handsome pres- 
 ence, and the morality of these drunkards is straight- 
 way incensed. The house is panic-stricken at seeing 
 these virtuous Goths rushing into the pit with drawn 
 swords in one hand, flaming, smoking, ill-smelling 
 torches in the other; and with vituperative cries 
 against "the Duchess of Portsmouth and other 
 persons of honour." The rioters, not satisfied with 
 thrusting their rapiers at the arms, sides, and legs of 
 the affrighted people in the pit, hurl their blazing 
 torches among the astounded actors on the stage ! 
 A panic and a general flight ensue. The house is 
 saved from destruction ; but as it is necessary to 
 punish somebody, the king satisfies his sense of 
 justice by pressing hard upon the innocent actors, 
 and shutting up the house during the royal pleasure ! 
 Much liquor, sharp swords, and angry tempers com- 
 bined to interrupt the enjoyment of many a peaceful 
 audience. An angry word passed, one April evening 
 of 1682, between Charles Dering, the son of Sir 
 Edward, and the hot-blooded young Welshman, Mr. 
 Vaughan, led to recrimination and sword drawing. 
 The two young fellows, not having elbow-room in 
 the pit, clambered on to the stage and fought there, 
 to the greater comfort of the audience, and with a 
 more excited fury on the part of the combatants. 
 The stage was that of the duke's company, then
 
 243 
 
 playing in Dorset Gardens. The adversaries fought 
 on till Bering got a thrust from the Welshman which 
 stretched him on the boards ; whereupon the author- 
 ities intervened, as there was no more mischief 
 to be done, and put Master Vaughan under re- 
 straint till Bering's wound was declared not to be 
 mortal. 
 
 The tiring-rooms of the actresses were then open 
 to the fine gentlemen who frequented the house. 
 They stood by at the mysteries of dressing, and 
 commented on what they beheld and did not behold 
 with such breadth and coarseness of wit, that the 
 more modest, or least impudent, ladies sent away 
 their little handmaidens. The dressing over, the 
 amateurs lounged into the house, talked loudly with 
 the pretty orange-girls, listened when it suited them, 
 and at the termination of the piece crowded again 
 into the tiring-room of the most favourite and least 
 scrupulous of the actresses. Among these gallants 
 who thus oscillated between the pit and the dressing 
 bowers of the ladies was a Sir Hugh Middleton, who 
 is not to be confounded with his namesake of the 
 New River. On the second Saturday of February, 
 1667, Sir Hugh was among the joyous damsels 
 dressing for the play behind the stage of Old 
 Brury. The knight was so unpleasantly critical on 
 the nymphs before him, that one of them, sharp- 
 tongued Beck Marshall, bade him keep among the 
 ladies of the Buke's House since he did not approve 
 of those who served the king. Sir Hugh burst out 
 with a threat that he would kick, or what was worse, 
 hire his footman to kick her. The pretty but angry 
 Rebecca nursed her wrath all Sunday ; but on Mon-
 
 244 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 day she notified the ungallant outrage to the great 
 champion of insulted dames, the king. Nothing 
 immediately came of it ; and on Tuesday there was 
 Sir Hugh glowering at her from the front of the 
 house, and waylaying her as she was leaving it with 
 a friend. Sir Hugh whispers a ruffianly looking fellow, 
 who follows the actress, and presses upon her so 
 closely, that she is moved by a double fear, that 
 he is about to rob, and, perhaps, stab her. A little 
 scream scares the bravo for a minute or so. He 
 skulks away, but anon slinks back ; and, armed with 
 the first offensive missile he could pick up in a Drury 
 Lane gutter, he therewith anoints the face and hair 
 of the much shocked actress, and then, like the val- 
 iant fellows of his trade, takes to his heels. The 
 next day, sweet as Anadyomene rising from the sea, 
 the actress appeared before the king, and charged 
 Sir Hugh with being the abettor of this gross out- 
 rage. How the knight was punished the record in 
 the state paper office does not say ; but about a fort- 
 night later a royal decree was issued which prohibited 
 gentlemen from entering the tiring-rooms of the 
 ladies of the king's theatre. For some nights the 
 gallants sat ill at ease among the audience; but 
 the journals of the period show that the nymphs 
 must have been as little pleased with this arrange- 
 ment as the fine gentlemen themselves, who soon 
 found their way back to pay the homage of flattery 
 to the most insatiable of goddesses. 
 
 Not that all the homage was paid to the latter. 
 The wits loved to assemble, after the play was done, 
 in the dressing-rooms of the leading actors with 
 whom they most cared to cultivate an intimacy.
 
 AUDIENCES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 245 
 
 Much company often congregated here, generally 
 with the purpose of assigning meetings where fur- 
 ther enjoyment might be pursued. 
 
 Then, when it was holiday with the legislature, the 
 house was filled with Parliament men. On one of 
 these occasions Pepys records " how a gentleman 
 of good habit, sitting just before us, eating of some 
 fruit in the midst of the play, did drop down as dead ; 
 but, with much ado, Orange Moll did thrust her fin- 
 ger down his throat, and brought him to life again." 
 This was an incident of the year 1667. 
 
 Returning to the front of the stage, we find the 
 ladies in the boxes subjected to the audible criticisms 
 of "the little cockerels of the pit," as Ravenscroft 
 calls them, with whom the more daring damsels 
 entered into a smart contest of repartees. As the 
 "play house'* was then the refuge of all idle young 
 people, these wit-combats were listened to with inter- 
 est from the town fops to the rustic young squires 
 who came to the theatre in cordovant gloves, and 
 were quite unconscious of poisoning the affected fine 
 ladies with the smell of them. The poets used to 
 assert that all the wit of the pittites was stolen from 
 the plays which they read or saw acted. It seemed 
 the privilege of the box-loungers to have none, or to 
 perform other services, namely, to sit all the evening 
 by a mistress, or to blaze from " Fop's corner," or to 
 mark the modest women by noting those who did not 
 use their fans through a whole play, nor turn aside 
 their heads, nor, by blushing, discover more guilt 
 than modesty. Thrice happy was she who found 
 the greatest number of slaves at the door of her 
 box, waiting obsequiously to hand or escort her to
 
 246 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 her chair. These beaux were hard to fix, so erratic 
 were they in their habits. They ran, as Gatty perti- 
 nently has it, " from one playhouse to the other play- 
 house ; and if they like neither the play nor the 
 women, they seldom stay any longer than the comb- 
 ing of their periwigs, or a whisper or two with a 
 friend, and then they cock their caps, and out they 
 strut again." With fair and witty strangers these 
 gay fellows, their eyebrows and periwigs redolent of 
 the essence of orange and jasmine, entered into con- 
 versation, till a gentleman's name, called by a door- 
 keeper in the passage, summoned him to impatient 
 companions waiting for him outside ; when he left 
 the " censure " of his appearance to critical ob- 
 servers, like those who ridiculed the man of mode, 
 for " his gloves drawn up to his elbows and his peri- 
 wig more exactly curled than a lady's head newly 
 dressed for a ball." 
 
 Of the vizard-masks, Gibber tells the whole history 
 in a few words : " I remember the ladies were then 
 observed to be decently afraid of venturing barefaced 
 to a new comedy, till they had been assured they 
 might do it without insult to their modesty; or, if 
 their curiosity were too strong for their patience, they 
 took care at least to save appearances, and rarely 
 came in the first days of acting but in masks, which 
 custom, however, had so many ill consequences attend- 
 ing it, that it has been abolished these many years." 
 
 The poets sometimes accused the ladies of blushing, 
 not because of offence, but from constraint on laugh- 
 ter. Farquhar's Pindress says to Lucinda, "Didn't 
 you chide me for not putting stronger laces in your 
 stays, when you had broken one as strong as a
 
 AUDIENCES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 247 
 
 hempen cord with containing a violent ti-hee at a 
 jest in the last play ? " 
 
 Gibber describes the beaux of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury as being of quite a different stamp from the 
 more modern sort. The former "had more of the 
 stateliness of the peacock in their mien, whereas 
 the latter seemed to place their highest emulation in 
 imitating " the pert air of a lapwing." The greatest 
 possible compliment was paid to Gibber by the hand- 
 some, witty, blooming young fop, Brett, who was so 
 enchanted with the wig the former wore as Sir 
 Novelty Fashion in " Love's Last Shift," that fancy- 
 ing the wearing it might ensure him success among 
 the ladies, he went around to Gibber's dressing-room, 
 and entered into negotiations for the purchase of 
 that wonderful cataract periwig. The fine gentle- 
 men among the audience had, indeed, the credit of 
 being less able to judge of a play than of a peruke ; 
 and Dryden speaks of an individual as being "as 
 invincibly ignorant as a town-sop judging of a new 
 play." 
 
 Lord Foppington, in 1697, did not pretend to be 
 a beau ; but he remarks, " a man must endeavour to 
 look wholesome, lest he make so nauseous a figure 
 in the side-box, the ladies should be compelled to 
 turn their eyes upon the play." It was the " thing " 
 to look upon the company unless some irresistible 
 attraction drew attention to the stage ; and the cur- 
 tain down, the beau became active in the service of 
 the ladies generally. " Till nine o'clock," says Lord 
 Foppington, "I amuse myself by looking on the 
 company, and usually dispose of one hour more in 
 leading them out."
 
 248 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Some fine gentlemen were unequal to such gal- 
 lantry. At these Southerne glances in his " Sir 
 Anthony Love," where he describes the hard drinkers 
 who "go to a tavern to swallow a drunkenness, and 
 then to a play, to talk over their liquor." And these 
 had their counterparts in 
 
 " the youngsters of a noisy pit, 
 Whose tongues and mistresses outran their wit." 
 
 It was, however, much the same in the boxes, where 
 the beaux' oath was "zauns," it being token of a 
 rustic blasphemer to say "zounds;" and where, 
 though a country squire might say, " bless us ! " it 
 was the mark of a man of fashion to cry, "dem 
 me!" 
 
 With such personages in pit and boxes, we may 
 rest satisfied that there was a public to match in 
 the gallery a peculiar as well as a general public. 
 
 A line in a prologue of the year 1672, "The 
 stinking footman's sent to keep your places," alludes 
 to a custom by which the livery profited. Toward 
 the close of the century, the upper gallery of Drury 
 Lane was opened to footmen, gratis. They were 
 supposed to be in attendance on their masters, but 
 these rather patronised the other house, and as 
 Drury could not attract the nobility, it courted the 
 favour of their not very humble servants. Pre- 
 viously, the lackeys were admitted after the close 
 of the fourth act of the play. They became the 
 most clamorous critics in the house. It was the 
 custom, when these fellows passed the money-taker, 
 to name their master, who was supposed to be in the 
 boxes ; but many frauds were practised. A stalwart,
 
 AUDIENCES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 249 
 
 gold-laced, thick-calved, irreverent lackey swaggered 
 past money and check-taker, one afternoon, and named 
 
 " the Lord ," adding the name which the Jews 
 
 of old would never utter, out of fear and rever- 
 ence. " The Lord ! " said the money-taker 
 
 to his colleague, after the saucy footman had flung 
 by, " who is he ? " " Can't say," was the reply ; 
 " some poor Scotch lord, I suppose ! " Such is an 
 alleged sample of the ignorance and the blasphemy 
 of the period. 
 
 Returning to the pit, I find, with the critics and 
 other good men there, a sprinkling of clerical gentle- 
 men, especially of chaplains ; their patrons perhaps 
 being in the boxes. In the papers of the day, in 
 the year 1697, I read of a little incident which illus- 
 trates social matters, and which, probably, did not 
 much trouble the theatrical cleric who went to the 
 pit so strangely provided. " There was found," says 
 the paragraph, "in the pit of the playhouse, Drury 
 Lane, Covent Garden, on Whitsun eve, a qualifica- 
 tion, signed by the Right Honourable the Lord 
 Dartmouth to the Reverend Mr. Nicholson, to be 
 his chaplain extraordinary ; the said qualification be- 
 ing wrapped up in a black taffety cap, together with 
 a bottle-screw, a knotting-needle, and a ball of sky- 
 colour and white knotting. If the said Mr. Nichol- 
 son will repair to the pit-keeper's house, in Vinegar 
 Yard, at the Crooked Billet, he shall have the mov- 
 ables restored, giving a reasonable gratitude." 
 
 Probably Mr. Nicholson did not claim his qualifi- 
 cation. His patron was son of the Lord Dartmouth 
 who corresponded with James II. while expressing 
 allegiance to William III., and was subsequently
 
 250 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Queen Anne's secretary of state, and the annotator 
 of Burnet's " History of his Own Times." 
 
 The audiences of King William's time were quick 
 at noticing and applying political allusions ; and 
 government looked as sharply after the dramatic 
 poets as it did after the Jacobite plotters. When 
 much intercourse was going on between the exiled 
 king at St. Germains and his adherents in this 
 country, a Colonel Mottley (of whose son, as a drama- 
 tist, I shall have occasion to speak in a future page), 
 was sent over by James with despatches. The Earl 
 of Nottingham laid watch for him at the Blue Posts, 
 in the Haymarket, but the secretary's officers missed 
 the colonel, seizing in his place a Cornish gentleman, 
 named Tredenham, who was seated in a room, sur- 
 rounded by papers, and waiting for the colonel. 
 
 Tredenham and the documents were conveyed in 
 custody before the earl, to whom the former ex- 
 plained that he was a poet, sketching out a play, 
 that the papers seized formed portions of the piece, 
 and that he had nothing to do with plots against his 
 Majesty de facto. Daniel Finch, however, was as 
 careful to read the roughly sketched play, as if it had 
 been the details of a conspiracy ; and then the author 
 was summoned before him. "Well, Mr. Treden- 
 ham," said he, " I have perused your play, and heard 
 your statement, and as I can find no trace of a plot 
 in either, I think you may go free." 
 
 The sincerity of the audiences of those days is 
 something doubtful, if that be true which Dryden 
 affirms, that he observed, namely, that "in all our 
 tragedies the audience cannot forbear laughing when 
 the actors are to die : 'tis the most comic part of the
 
 AUDIENCES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 251 
 
 whole play." He says all our tragedies; but, we 
 know that such was not the case when the heroes 
 of ' Shakespeare, represented by Betterton, Hart, or 
 Harris, suffered mimic dissolution, and it is but a fair 
 suggestion that it was only in the bombast and 
 fustian tragedies, in which death was the climax of 
 a comic situation, and treated bombastically, that 
 the audiences were moved to laughter. 
 
 Sincere or not, the resident Londoners were great 
 playgoers, and gadders generally. I have already 
 quoted Bishop Heckett on this matter. Sermons 
 thus testify to a matter of fashion. It appears from 
 a play, Dryden's "Sir Martin Marall," that if Lon- 
 doners were the permanent patrons, the country 
 " quality " looked for an annual visit. At the present 
 time it is the visitors and not the residents in Lon- 
 don who most frequent the theatre. " I came up, 
 as we country gentlewomen use, at an Easter term, 
 to the destruction of tarts and cheesecakes, to see 
 a new play, buy a new gown, take a turn in the park, 
 and so down again to sleep with my forefathers." 
 
 This resort to the theatres displeased better men 
 than nonjuring Collier. Mirthful-minded South, he 
 who preached to the Merchant Tailors of the rem- 
 nant that should be saved, calls theatres "those 
 spiritual pest-houses, where scarce anything is to be 
 heard or seen but what tends to the corruption of 
 good manners, and from whence not one of a thou- 
 sand returns but infected with the love of vice, or 
 at least with the hatred of it very much abated from 
 what it was before. And that, I assure you, is no 
 inconsiderable point gained by the tempter, as those 
 who have any experience of their own heart suffi-
 
 352 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 ciently know. He who has no mind to trade with 
 the devil, should be so wise as to keep away from 
 his shop." South objects to a corrupt, not to a 
 "well-bred stage." 
 
 Yet South, like Collier later, laid to the scene 
 much of the sin of the age. 
 
 If we were to judge of the character of women by 
 the comedies of the last half of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, we might conclude that they were all, without 
 exception, either constantly at the play, or constantly 
 wishing to be there. But the Marquis of Halifax, in 
 his "Advice to a Daughter," shows that they were 
 only a class. "Some ladies," he says, "are bespoke 
 for merry meetings, as Bessus was for duels. They 
 are engaged in a circle of idleness, where they turn 
 round, for the whole year, without the interruption 
 of a serious hour. They know all the players' names, 
 and are intimately acquainted with all the booths at 
 Bartholomew Fair. The spring, that bringeth out 
 flies and fools, maketh them inhabitants of Hyde 
 Park. In the winter, they are an encumbrance to 
 the playhouse, and the ballast of the drawing- 
 room." 
 
 We may learn how the playhouse, encumbered by 
 the fast ladies of bygone years, stood, and what were 
 the prospects of the stage at this time, by looking 
 into a private epistle. A few lines in a letter from 
 " Mr. Vanbrook " (afterward Sir John Vanbrugh) to 
 the Earl of Manchester, and written on Christmas 
 day, 1699, will show the position and hopes of the 
 stage, as that century was closing. " Miss Evans," 
 he writes, "the dancer at the new playhouse, is 
 dead; a fever slew her in eight and forty hours.
 
 AUDIENCES OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 253 
 
 She's much lamented by the town, as well as by the 
 house, who can't well bear her loss ; matters running 
 very low with 'em this winter. If Congreve's play 
 don't help 'em they are undone. 'Tis a comedy, and 
 will be played about six weeks hence. Nobody has 
 seen it yet." The same letter informs us that Dick 
 Leveridge, the bass singer of Lincoln's Inn Fields 
 Theatre, was tarrying in Ireland, rather than face 
 his creditors in England, and that Doggett (of whom 
 there is no account during the years 1698, 1699, 
 1700) had been playing for a week at the above 
 theatre, for the sum of 50 ! This is the first 
 instance I know of, of the " starring " system ; and 
 it is remarkable that the above sum should have been 
 given for six nights' performances, when Betterton's 
 salary did not exceed $ per week. 
 
 The century closed ill for the stage. Congreve's 
 play, "The Way of the World," failed to give it any 
 lustre. Dancers, tumblers, strong men, and quad- 
 rupeds, were called in to attract the town ; and the 
 elephant at the Great Mogul in Fleet Street " drew " 
 to such an extent that he would have been brought 
 upon the stage but for the opinion of a master- 
 carpenter that he would pull the house down. There 
 was an empty treasury at both the theatres. There 
 was ill-management at one, and ill-health (the declin- 
 ing health of Betterton) to mar the other. And so 
 closes the half century.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY 
 
 THE great players, by giving action to the poet's 
 words, illustrated the quaintly expressed idea of the 
 sweet singer who says : 
 
 " What Thought can think another Thought can mend." 
 
 Nevertheless, the theatres had not proved profit- 
 able. The public greeted acrobats with louder 
 acclaim than any poet. King William cared more 
 to see the feats of Kentish Patagonians than to listen 
 to Shakespeare ; and, for a time, Doggett, by creat- 
 ing laughter, reaped more glittering reward than 
 Betterton, by drawing tears. The first season, how- 
 ever, of the eighteenth century was commenced with 
 great spirit. Drury Lane opened with Gibber's 
 "Love Makes a Man," an adaptation from Beau- 
 mont and Fletcher. Gibber was the Clodio ; Wilks, 
 Carlos ; and Mrs. Verbruggen, Louisa. Five other 
 new pieces were produced in this brief season. This 
 was followed by the " Humour of the Age," a dull 
 comedy, by Baker, who generally gave his audience 
 something to laugh at, and showed some originality 
 in more than one of his five pieces. He was an 
 attorney's son, and an Oxford University man ; but 
 he took to writing for the stage, had an ephemeral 
 
 254
 
 A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY 255 
 
 success, and died early, in worse plight than any 
 author, even in the days when authors occasionally 
 died in evil condition. The third novelty was Settle's 
 mad operatic tragedy, the " Siege of Troy," with 
 a procession in which figured six white elephants! 
 Griffin returned to the stage from the army, with 
 " Captain " attached to his name, and played Ulysses. 
 The dulness and grandeur of Settle's piece were 
 hardly relieved by Farquhar's sequel to his "Con- 
 stant Couple," " Sir Harry Wildair." The reputa- 
 tion of the former piece secured for the latter a run 
 of nine nights ; so were successes calculated in those 
 early days. Wilks laid down Sir Harry to enact 
 the distresses of Loraine, in Mrs. Trotter's new 
 play, "The Unhappy Penitent," which gave way in 
 turn for Durfey's intriguing comedy, "The Bath, 
 or the Western Lass," in which Mrs. Verbruggen's 
 "Gillian Homebred," made her the darling of the 
 town. 
 
 In the same season, the company at Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields produced a like number of new pieces. In the 
 first, the " Double Distress," Booth, Verbruggen, Mrs. 
 Barry, and Mrs. Bracegirdle wasted their talents. 
 Mrs. Fix, the author, having failed in this mixture 
 of rhyme and blank verse, failed in a greater degree 
 in her next play in prose, the " Tsar of Muscovy." 
 Booth and Mrs. Barry could do nothing with such ma- 
 terials. The masters forthwith enacted the " Lady's 
 Visiting Day," by Burnaby. In this comedy Bet- 
 terton played the gallant lover, Courtine, to the Lady 
 Love^oy of Mrs. Barry. The lady here would only 
 marry a prince. Courtine wins her as Prince Alex- 
 ander of Muscovy : and the audience laughed as they
 
 256 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 recognised therein the incident of the merry Lord 
 Montagu wooing the mad Duchess Dowager of Albe- 
 marle, as the Empress of China, and marrying her 
 under that very magnificent dignity, to any inferior to 
 which the duchess had declared she would not stoop. 
 
 The hilarity of the public was next challenged by 
 the production of Granville's (Lord Lansdowne) "Jew 
 of Venice," "improved" from Shakespeare, who 
 was described as having furnished the rude sketches 
 which had been amended and adorned by Granville's 
 new master-strokes ! 
 
 Gildon's dull piece of Druidism, "Love's Victim, 
 or the Queen of Wales," appeared and failed, not- 
 withstanding its wonderful cast ; but Corye's " Cure 
 for Jealousy " brought the list of novelties merrily to 
 a close ; for though the audience saw no fun in it, 
 they did in the anger of the author, a little man, 
 with a whistle of a voice, who abandoned the law for 
 the stage, and was as weak an actor as he was an 
 author. He attributed his failure to the absurd ad- 
 miration of the public for Farquhar. He was absurd 
 enough to say so in print, and to speak contemptu- 
 ously of poor George's "Jubilee Farce." In those 
 wicked days, literary men loved not each other ! 
 
 In 1702, the Drury Lane company brought out 
 eight new pieces, and worked indefatigably. They 
 commenced with Dennis's "Comical Gallant," an 
 " improved " edition of Shakespeare's " Merry Wives," 
 in which Powell made but a sorry Falstaff. This 
 piece gave way to one entirely original, and very 
 much duller, the " Generous Conqueror," of the ex- 
 fugitive Jacobite, Bevil Higgons. In this poor play, 
 Bevjl illustrated the right divine and impeccability of
 
 A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY 257 
 
 his late liege sovereign, King James ; denounced the 
 Revolution, by implication ; did in his only play what 
 Doctor Sacheverill did in the pulpit, and made even 
 his Jacobites laugh by his bouncing line, " The gods 
 and godlike kings can do no wrong." 
 
 Laughter more genuine might have been expected 
 from the next novelty, Farquhar's " Inconstant ; " 
 but that clever adaptation of Fletcher's " Wild Goose 
 Chase," with Wilks for young Mirabel, did not affect 
 the town so hilariously as I have seen it do when 
 Charles Kemble gracefully, but somewhat too demon- 
 stratively, enacted the part of that gay, silly, but 
 lucky gentleman. Still less pleased were the public 
 with the next play, tossed up for them in a month, 
 and condemned in a night, Burnaby's " Moodish Hus- 
 band." Of course, this husband, Lord Promise, is a 
 man who loves his neighbour's wife, and cares not who 
 loves his own. An honest man in this comedy, Sir 
 Lively Cringe, does not think ill of married women, 
 and he is made a buffoon and more, accordingly. 
 When Lady Cringe, in the dark, holds her lover 
 Lionel with one hand, her husband with the other, 
 and declares that her fingers are locked with those 
 of the man she loves best in the world, Sir Lively 
 believes her. In this wise did the stage hold the 
 mirror up to nature, at the beginning of the last 
 century. 
 
 Not more edifying nor much more successful was 
 Vanbrugh's " False Friend," a comedy in which there 
 is a murder enacted before the audience ! What the 
 house lost by it was fully made up by the unequivocal 
 success of the next new piece, the " Funeral, or Grief 
 4 la Mode." The author was then six and twenty
 
 258 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 years of age ; this was his first piece, and his name 
 was Steele. All that was known of him then was, 
 that he was a native of Dublin, had been fellow pupil 
 at the Charterhouse with Addison, had left the uni- 
 versity without a degree, and was said to have lost 
 the succession to an estate in Wexford by enlisting 
 as "a private gentleman in the Horse Guards;" a 
 phrase significant enough, as the proper designation 
 of that body, at this day, is " Gentlemen of her Maj- 
 esty's Royal Horse Guards." He was the wildest 
 and wittiest young dog about town, when in 1701 he 
 published, with a dedication to Lord Cutts, to whom 
 he had been private secretary, and through whom he 
 had been appointed to a company in Lord Lucas's 
 Fusiliers, his " Christian Hero," a treatise in which he 
 showed what he was not, by showing what a man 
 ought to be. It brought the poor fellow into inces- 
 sant perplexity, and even peril. Some thought him 
 a hypocrite, others provoked him as a coward, all 
 measured his sayings and doings by his maxims in 
 his Christian Hero, and Dick Steele was suffering 
 in the regard of the town, when he resolved to re- 
 deem the character which he could not keep up to 
 the level of his religious hero, by composing a comedy ! 
 He thoroughly succeeded, and there were troopers 
 enough in the house to have beat the rest of the 
 audience into shouting approbation, had they not 
 been well inclined to do so, spontaneously. The 
 " Funeral " is the merriest and the most perfect of 
 Steele's comedies. The characters are strongly 
 marked, the wit genial, and not indecent. Steele 
 was among the first who set about reforming the 
 licentiousness of the old comedy. His satire in
 
 A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY 259 
 
 the "Funeral" is not against virtue, but vice and 
 silliness. When the two lively ladies in widow's 
 weeds meet, Steele's classical memory served him 
 with a good illustration. " I protest, I wonder," says 
 Lady Brampton (Mrs. Verbruggen), " how two of us 
 thus clad can meet with a grave face." The most 
 genuine humour in the piece was that applied against 
 lawyers ; but more especially in the satire against un- 
 dertakers, and all their mockery of woe. Take the 
 scene in which Sable (Johnson) is giving instructions 
 to his men, and reviewing them the while : " Ha, 
 you're a little more upon the dismal. This fellow 
 has a good mortal look place him near the corpse. 
 That wainscot-face must be a-top o' the stairs. That 
 fellow's almost in a fright, that looks as if he were 
 full of some strange misery, at the end o' the hall ! 
 So ! But I'll fix you all myself. Let's have no 
 laughing now, on any provocation. Look yonder at 
 that hale, well-looking puppy ! You ungrateful 
 scoundrel, didn't I pity you, take you out of a great 
 man's service, and show you the pleasure of receiving 
 wages ? Didn't I give you ten, then fifteen, then 
 twenty shillings a week, to be sorrowful ? And the 
 more I give you the gladder you are ! " This sort of 
 humour was new; no wonder it made a sensation. 
 Steele became the spoiled child of the town. " Noth- 
 ing," said he, " ever makes the town so fond of a man 
 as a successful play." Old Sunderland and younger 
 Halifax patronised Steele for his own, and for Addi- 
 son's sake ; and the author of the new comedy re- 
 ceived the appointment of writer of the Gazette. 
 
 After a closing of the houses during Bartholomew 
 Fair, the Drury Lane company met again ; and again
 
 260 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 won the town by Gibber's " She Would and She 
 Would Not." This excellent comedy contrasts well 
 with the same author's also admirable comedy, the 
 "Careless Husband." In the latter there is much 
 talk of action ; in the former there is much action 
 during very good talk. There is much fun, little 
 vulgarity, sharp epigrams on the manners and 
 morals of the times, good-humoured satire against 
 popery, and a succession of incidents which never 
 flags from the rise to the fall of the curtain. The 
 plot may be not altogether original, and there is an 
 occasional incorrectness in the local colour ; but taken 
 as a whole, it is a very amusing comedy, and it kept 
 the stage even longer than Steele's " Funeral." 
 
 Far less successful was Drury with the last and 
 eighth new play of this season, Farquhar's " Twin 
 Rivals," for the copyright of which the author re- 
 ceived .15 6s. from Tonson. Farquhar, perhaps, 
 took more pains with this than with any of his plays, 
 and has received praise in return ; but after Steele 
 and Gibber's comedies, the " Twin Rivals " had only 
 what the French call a succh d'estime. 
 
 To the eight pieces of Drury, Lincoln's Inn op- 
 posed half a dozen, only one of which has come down 
 to our times, namely, Rowe's " Tamerlane," with which 
 the company opened the season : Tamerlane, Better- 
 ton ; Bajazet, Verbruggen ; Axalla, Booth ; Aspasia, 
 Mrs. Barry. In this piece, Rowe left sacred for pro- 
 fane history, and made his tragedy so politically al- 
 lusive to Louis XIV. in the character of Bajazet, and 
 to William III. in Tamerlane, that it was for many 
 years represented at each theatre on every recurring 
 4th and 5th of November, the anniversary of the
 
 A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY 261 
 
 birth and of the landing of King William. In Dublin, 
 the anniversary of the great delivery from "popery 
 and wooden shoes," was marked by a piece of gal- 
 lantry on the part of the lord lieutenant, or, in his 
 absence, the lords justices, namely, by arrangement 
 with the manager, admission to the boxes was free to 
 every lady disposed to honour the theatre with her 
 presence ! 
 
 Rowe has made a virtuous hero of Tamerlane, 
 without at all causing him to resemble William of 
 Orange ; but, irrespective of this, there is life in this 
 tragedy, which, with some of the bluster of the old, 
 had some of the sentiment of the new school. In 
 1746, when the Scottish Rebellion had been entirely 
 suppressed, it was acted on the above anniversaries 
 with much attendant enthusiasm, Mrs. Pritchard 
 speaking an epilogue written for the occasion by 
 Horace Walpole, and licensed by the chamberlain, 
 the Duke of Grafton, notwithstanding a compliment 
 to his Grace, which Walpole thought might induce 
 the duke, out of sheer modesty, to withhold his offi- 
 cial sanction. Tamerlane has been a favourite part 
 with many actors. Lady Morgan's father, Mr. 
 Owenson, made his first appearance in it, under 
 Garrick's rule ; but a Tamerlane with a strong Irish 
 brogue and comic redundant action created different 
 sensations from those intended by the author, and 
 though the audience did not hiss, they laughed abun- 
 dantly. 
 
 To "Tamerlane" succeeded "Antiochus the 
 Great," a tragedy full of the old love, bombast, and 
 murder. The Author was a Mrs. Jane Wiseman, who 
 was a servant in the family of Mr. Wright, of Ox-
 
 262 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 ford, where, having filled her mind with plays and 
 romances, she wrote this hyper-romantic play, and 
 having married a well-to-do Westminster vintner, 
 named Holt, she succeeded in seeing it fail, as it 
 well deserved to do. 
 
 It seemed as if the king-killing in the plebeian 
 lady's tragedy required some counteraction, and ac- 
 cordingly, Lord Orrery's posthumous play of " Alte- 
 mira" was next brought forward. There is a true 
 king and also a usurper in this roaring yet senti- 
 mental tragedy, in whom Whigs and Tories might 
 recognise the sovereigns whom they respectively 
 adored. One monarch himself complacently re- 
 marks : 
 
 " Whatever crimes are acted for a crown, 
 The gods forgive, when once that crown's put on." 
 
 To touch the Lord's anointed is an unpardonable 
 sin ; but if the Whigs were rendered uneasy by this 
 sentiment, they probably found comfort in the speech 
 wherein Clerimont (Betterton), while owning respect 
 for the deprived monarch, confesses the fitness of 
 being loyal to the one who displaced him. 
 
 To these three tragedies succeeded three now for- 
 gotten comedies : " The Gentleman Cully," in which 
 Booth fooled it to the top of his bent, in the only 
 English comedy which ends without a marriage; 
 the " Beaux' Duel," and the " Stolen Heiress," two 
 of Mrs. Carroll's (she had not yet become Mrs. Cent- 
 livre) bolder plagiarisms from old dramatists, brought 
 the Lincoln's Inn season to a close. 
 
 In the season of 1703 Drury Lane produced seven, 
 and Lincoln's Inn Fields six, pieces. The first, at
 
 A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY 263 
 
 Drury, was Baker's "Tunbridge Walks," the man- 
 ners of which smack of the old loose times. Then 
 came Durfey's " Old Mode and the New," a long, 
 dull, satirical comedy, on the fashions of Elizabeth's 
 days and those of Anne. Durfey was then at his 
 twenty-eighth comedy, and in the decline of his 
 powers. Little flourished about him save that ter- 
 rific beak which served for a nose, and also for an 
 excuse for his dislike to have his likeness taken. In 
 other respects, the wit, on whose shoulder Charles 
 had leaned, to whose songs William had listened, and 
 at them Anne even then laughed, was in vogue, but 
 not with the theatrical public. 
 
 A new author had tempted that public, in April, 
 with a comedy, entitled " Fair Example, or the Mod- 
 ish Citizens," by Estcourt, a strolling player, but 
 soon afterward a clever actor in this company, a man 
 whom Addison praised, and a good fellow, whom 
 Steele admired. His career had, hitherto, been a 
 strange one. He ran away from a respectable home 
 in Tewkesbury, when fifteen, to play Roxalana with 
 some itinerants, and fled from the company, on being 
 pursued thither by his friends, in the dress lent him 
 by a kind-hearted girl of the troupe. In this dress, 
 Estcourt made his way on foot to Chipping Norton, 
 at the inn of which place the weary supposed damsel 
 was invited to share the room of the landlord's daugh- 
 ter. Then ensued a scene as comic as any ever 
 invented by dramatist, but from which the parties 
 came off with some perplexity, and no loss of honour. 
 The young runaway was caught and sent home, and 
 thence he was despatched to Hatton Garden, and 
 bound by articles to learn there the apothecary's
 
 264 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 mystery. It is not known when he broke from these 
 bonds ; but it is certain that he again some say 
 after he had himself failed in the practice of the mys- 
 tery he had painfully learned took to the joys and 
 sorrows, trials, triumphs, and temptations of a wan- 
 dering player's life till 1698, or about that period, 
 when he appeared in Dublin, with success. He was 
 between thirty and forty years of age when he came 
 to London with the " Fair Example," an adaptation, 
 like the " Confederacy," of Dancour's " Modish Citi- 
 zens," but not destined to an equal success, despite 
 the acting of Cibber and Norris, and that brilliant 
 triad of ladies, Verbruggen, Oldfield, and Powell. 
 In June, Mrs. Carroll served up Moliere's " M&iecin 
 malgr6 Lui," in the cold dish called " Love's Contri- 
 vance ; " and, in the same month, Wilkinson and his 
 sole comedy, " Vice Reclaimed," appeared ; and are 
 now forgotten. 
 
 Next, Manning tried the judgment of the town 
 with his "All for the Better," a comedy, of triple 
 plots, stolen from old writers. Manning resembled 
 Steele only in leaving the university without a degree. 
 If Steele obtained a government appointment after 
 his dramatic success, Manning acquired a better 
 after his failure. He was, first, secretary to our 
 Legation in Switzerland ; and, secondly, envoy to 
 the Cantons ; and was about as respectable in diplo- 
 macy as in the drama. 
 
 Gildon's play of the " Patriot, or the Italian Con- 
 spiracy," the last produced this year, with Mills as 
 Cosmo de Medici, and Wilks as his son Julio, merits 
 notice only as an instance of the mania for recon- 
 structing accepted stories. Gildon, toward the close
 
 A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY 265 
 
 of his wayward and silly career, transmuted Lee's 
 ancient Roman " Lucius Junius Brutus " into the 
 modern Italian "Patriot." The public consigned it 
 to oblivion. 
 
 During this season, when " Macbeth " was the only 
 one of Shakespeare's plays performed, the theatre in 
 Dorset Gardens was prepared for opera ; and in the 
 summer the company followed Queen Anne to Bath, 
 by command ; but there went not with them the most 
 brilliant actress of light comedy that the two centuries 
 had hitherto seen, Mrs. Verbruggen, that sparkling 
 Mrs. Mountfort whose father, Mr. Perceval, was con- 
 demned to death for treason against King William, 
 on the day her husband was murdered by Lord 
 Mohun ! The Jacobite father was, however, par- 
 doned. Mrs. Mountfort, or Verbruggen, left a suc- 
 cessor equal, perhaps superior, to herself, in Mrs. 
 Oldfield. 
 
 The season of 1703, at Lincoln's Inn Fields, was 
 distinguished by the success of Rowe's " Fair Peni- 
 tent," the one great triumph of the year. The 
 other novelties require only to be recorded. That 
 most virulent and unscrupulous of Whig partisan 
 writers, Oldmixon, opened the season with his third 
 and last dramatic essay, the " Governor of Cyprus," 
 supported by Betterton, Booth, Powell, and Mrs. 
 Barry. Oldmixon was a poor dramatist, but he 
 made a tolerable excise officer, a post which he 
 acquired by his party writings. He would not, how- 
 ever, be remembered now, but for the preeminence 
 for dirt and dulness which Pope has awarded him in 
 the " Dunciad." The entire strength of the company, 
 Betterton excepted, was wasted on the comedies,
 
 266 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 "Different Widows," by a judicious, anonymous 
 author; "Love Betrayed," Burnaby's last of a poor 
 four, and that a marring of Shakespeare's " Twelfth 
 Night ; " and " As You Find It " (for Mrs. Porter's 
 benefit, in April). This was the only play written 
 by Charles Boyle, grandson of the dramatist Earl of 
 Orrery, to which ttyle he succeeded, four months 
 after his comedy (the dullest in the English language) 
 had failed. Boyle may have been a worthy antago- 
 nist of Bentley, touching the genuineness of the 
 "Epistles of Phalaris," but he could not vie with 
 such writers of comedy as Gibber, Farquhar, and 
 Steele. The production of the "Fickle Shepherd- 
 ess " a ruthless handling of Randolph's fine pas- 
 toral, "Amyntas" pleased but for a few nights, 
 though every woman of note in the company, and all 
 beautiful, played in it, making love to, or prettily 
 sighing at, or as prettily sulking with, each other. 
 The great event of the season was, undoubtedly, the 
 " Fair Penitent : " Lothario, Powell ; Horatio, Better- 
 ton ; Altamont, Verbruggen ; Calista, Mrs. Barry ; 
 Lavinia, Mrs. Bracegirdle. 
 
 Rowe had, in his " Tamerlane," thundered, after the 
 manner of Dryden ; had tried to be as pathetic as 
 Otway, and had employed some of the bombast of 
 Lee. But he lacked strength to make either of the 
 heroes of that resonant tragedy vigorous. In devot- 
 ing himself, henceforth, to illustrate the woes and 
 weaknesses of heroines, he discovered where his real 
 powers lay ; and Calista is one of the most successful 
 of his portraitures. There is gross and unavowed 
 plagiarism from Massinger's " Fatal Dowry," but 
 there is a greater purity of sentiment in Rowe, who
 
 A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY 267 
 
 leaves, however, mmch room for improvement, in 
 that respect, by his successors. Richardson saw this, 
 when he made of his Lovelace a somewhat purified 
 Lothario. Rowe, however, notwithstanding the weak 
 point in his Fair Penitent, who is more angry at being 
 found out, than sorry for what has happened, has 
 been eminently successful ; for all the sympathy of 
 the audience is freely rendered to Calista. The 
 tragedy may still be called an acting play, though it 
 has lost something of the popularity it retained dur- 
 ing the last century, when even Edward, Duke of 
 York, and Lady Stanhope, enacted Lothario and 
 Calista, in the once famous "private theatre" in 
 Downing Street. Johnson's criticism is all praise, 
 as regards both fable and treatment. The style is 
 purely English, as might be expected of a writer who 
 said of Dryden, that 
 
 " Backed by his friends, th' invader brought along 
 A crew of foreign words into our tongue, 
 To ruin and enslave our free-born English song. 
 Still, ihe prevailing faction propped his throne, 
 And to four volumes let his plays run on." 
 
 Shakespeare, in name, at least, reappears more 
 frequently on the stage during the Drury Lane 
 season of 1702-04, when "Hamlet," "King Lear," 
 "Macbeth," " Timon of Athens," "Richard III.," 
 the "Tempest," and "Titus Andronicus," were per- 
 formed. These, however, were the "improved" 
 editions of the poet. The novelties were, the " Ly- 
 ing Lover," by Steele ; " Love, the Leveller ; " and 
 the "Albion Queens." It was the season in which 
 great Anne fruitlessly forbade the presence of vizard-
 
 268 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 masks in the pit, and of gallants on the stage ; recom- 
 mended cleanliness of speech, and denounced the 
 shabby people who occasionally tried to evade the 
 money-takers. Steele, in his play, attempted to 
 support one of the good objects which the queen had 
 in view ; but in striving to be pure after his idea of 
 purity, and to be moral, after a loose idea of morality, 
 he failed altogether in wit, humour, and invention. 
 He thought to prove himself a good churchman, he 
 said, even in so small a matter as comedy ; and in 
 his character of comic poet, " I have been," he says, 
 " a martyr and confessor for the Church, for this play 
 was damned for its piety." This is as broad an un- 
 truth as anything uttered by the Lying Lover 
 himself, who, when he does express a mawkish sen- 
 timent after he has killed a man in his liquor, can 
 only be held to be "a liar" as before. Steele was 
 condemned for stupidity in a piece, the only ray 
 of humour in which pierces through the dirty, noisy, 
 drunken throngs of gallows-birds in Newgate. That 
 Steele seriously intended his play to be the begin- 
 ning of an era of " new comedy," is, however, cer- 
 tain. In the prologue, it was said of the author : 
 
 " He aims to make the coming action move 
 On the tried laws of friendship and of love. 
 He offers no gross vices to your sight, 
 Those too much horror raise, for just delight." 
 
 Steele's comedy was a step in a right direction ; 
 and his great fault was pretending to be half ashamed 
 of having made it. That it had a " clear stage and 
 no favour," is literally true. It was one of the first 
 pieces played without a mingling of the public with
 
 A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY 269 
 
 the players, an evil fashion which was not entirely 
 suppressed for threescore years after Queen Anne's 
 decree, when Garrick proved more absolute than her 
 Majesty. It was a practice which so annoyed Baron, 
 that proudest of French actors, that to suggest to 
 the audience in the house the absurdity of it, he 
 would turn his back on them for a whole act, and 
 play to the audience on the stage. Sometimes the 
 noise was so loud, that an actor's voice could be 
 scarcely heard. " You speak too low ! " cried a pit- 
 critic to Defresne. " And you too high ! " retorted 
 the actor. The offended pit screamed its indignation, 
 and demanded an abject apology. " Gentlemen," 
 said Defresne, "I never felt the degradation of my 
 position till now ; " and the pit interrupted the 
 bold exordium by rounds of applause, under which 
 he resumed his part. 
 
 Of the other pieces produced this season at Drury 
 Lane, it will suffice to say, that " Love, the Leveller," 
 was by "G. B., gent.," who describes its failure to 
 his having adopted the counsel of friends, and who 
 consoles himself by the thought, that " it found so 
 favourable a reception that the best plays hardly ever 
 meet with a fuller audience." Happy man ! his piece 
 was at least damned by a full house. The "Albion 
 Queens " was an old play by Banks, which, dealing 
 with the affairs of England and Scotland, was held 
 to be politically dangerous ; but good Queen Anne 
 now licensed it, on the report of its inoffensiveness 
 made by " a nobleman ; " and its dulness, relieved 
 by good acting, . delighted our easy forefathers for 
 half a century. 
 
 Lincoln's Inn failed to distinguish itself this sea-
 
 270 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 son. Eton had no reason to be proud of the comedy 
 of its alumnus, Walker, " Marry or Do Worse ; " and 
 in the tragedy of "Abra Mule," with its similes, 
 which continually run away with their rider, the 
 young Master of Arts, Trapp, shows that he was as 
 poor a poet, in his early days, as that translation of 
 Virgil, which so broke the rest of Mrs. Trapp, proved 
 him to be in his later years, when he was D. D., and 
 professor of poetry. Dennis's " Liberty Asserted " 
 only demonstrated how heartily he hated the French ; 
 and as there was no dramatist who did so, in the 
 same degree, when the French and the Pretender 
 were very obnoxious, some years later, this thunder of 
 Dennis was revived to stimulate antipathies. Queen 
 Anne's Scottish historiographer did nothing for the 
 English stage, by his comedy of " Love at First 
 Sight," and farces like the " Stage Coach," the 
 "Wits of Woman," and " Squire Trelooby," are only 
 remarkable because Betterton and the leading actors 
 played in them as readily as in " first pieces." 
 
 During May Fair the theatre was closed, some of 
 the actors playing there at Pinketh man's booth. In 
 the same season they played before the queen at St. 
 James's in the " Merry Wives of Windsor," with 
 Betterton as Falstaff, which he subsequently acted 
 for his own benefit. This piece, and also "Julius 
 Caesar," " Othello," and " Timon of Athens," were 
 the plays by, or from Shakespeare, which were played 
 this season. 
 
 The season of 1704-05, at Drury Lane, now pros- 
 pering, to the considerable vexation of Kit Rich, 
 chief proprietor, who felt himself unable to avoid 
 paying his company, their salaries, is notable for the
 
 A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY 271 
 
 production of Gibber's "Careless Husband." He 
 who now reads it for the first time may be surprised 
 to hear that in this comedy a really serious and 
 eminently successful attempt to reform the licentious- 
 ness of the drama was made by one who had been 
 himself a great offender. Nevertheless, the fact 
 remains. In Lord Morelove we have the first lover 
 in English comedy, since licentiousness possessed it, 
 who is at once a gentleman and an honest man. In 
 Lady Easy, we have, what was hitherto unknown or 
 laughed at, a virtuous married woman. It is a con- 
 versational piece, not one of much action. The dia- 
 logue is admirably sustained, not only in repartee, 
 but in descriptive parts. There is some refinement 
 manifested in treating and talking of things unrefined, 
 and incidents are pictured with a master's art. Gib- 
 ber's greatest claim to respect seems to me to rest 
 on this elegant and elaborate, though far from fault- 
 less comedy. So carefully did he construct the 
 character of the beautiful and brilliant coquette, Lady 
 Betty Modish, whose waywardness and selfishness 
 are finally subdued by a worthy lover, that he de- 
 spaired finding an actress with power enough to 
 realise his conception. It was written for Mrs. 
 Verbruggen (Mountfort), but she was now dead ; 
 Mrs. Bracegirdle might have played it, but " Bracey " 
 was not a member of the Drury Lane company. 
 There was, indeed, Mrs. Oldfield, but Colley could 
 scarcely see more in her than an actress of promise. 
 Reluctantly, however, he entrusted the part to her, 
 foreboding discomfort ; but there ensued a triumph 
 for the actress and the play, for which Colley was 
 admiringly grateful to the end of his life. To her,
 
 272 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 he confessed, was chiefly owing the success, though 
 every character was adequately cast. He eulogised 
 her excellence of action, and her "personal manner 
 of conversing." He adds, "There are many senti- 
 ments in the character of Lady Betty Modish that I 
 may almost say were originally her own, or only 
 dressed with a little more care than when they neg- 
 ligently fell from her lively humour; had her birth 
 placed her in a higher rank of life, she had certainly 
 appeared in reality what in this play she only excel- 
 lently acted, an agreeably gay woman of quality, a 
 little too conscious of her natural attractions." 
 
 Neither Gibber's friends nor foes seem to have at 
 all enjoyed his success. They would not compromise 
 their own reputation by questioning the merit of this 
 rare piece of dramatic excellence, but they insinuated 
 or asserted that he was not the author. It was writ- 
 ten by Defoe, by the Duke of Argyll, by Mrs. Old- 
 field's particular friend, Maynwaring! Congreve, 
 who had revelled in impurity, and stoutly asserted 
 his cleanliness, ungenerously declared, "Gibber has 
 produced a play consisting of fine gentlemen and 
 fine conversation, all together, which the ridiculous 
 town, for the most part, likes." Congreve had not 
 then forgiven the ridiculous world for receiving so 
 coldly his own last comedy, the " Way of the World." 
 Doctor Armstrong has more honestly analysed the 
 play, and pointed out its defects, without noticing its 
 merits ; but Walpole, no bad judge of a comedy of 
 such character, has enthusiastically declared that it 
 " deserves to be immortal." It has failed in that 
 respect, because its theme, manners, follies, and 
 allusions are obsolete, to say nothing of a company
 
 A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY 273 
 
 to follow even decently the original cast, which in- 
 cluded Sir Charles Easy, Wilks ; Lord Foppington, 
 Gibber ; and Lady Betty Modish, Mrs. Oldfield. 
 
 Steele's "Tender Husband, or the Accomplished 
 Fools," in which he had Addison for a coadjutor, was 
 produced in April, 1704. Addison's share therein 
 was not avowed till long subsequently, but it was 
 handsomely acknowledged, at last, by Steele, in the 
 Spectator. In the concluding paper of the seventh 
 volume, Steele alluded to certain scenes which had 
 been most applauded. These, he said, were by Addi- 
 son ; and honest Dick added, that he had ever since 
 thought meanly of himself in not having publicly 
 avowed the fact. This comedy was chiefly a satire 
 on the evils of romance reading, and was of a strictly 
 moral, yet decidedly heavy tendency ; but with a 
 Biddy Tipkin (Mrs. Oldfield), to which there has 
 been, as to Lady Betty Modish, no efficient successor. 
 There was a good end in both these plays. The 
 other novelties, "Arsinoe, Queen of Cyprus," an 
 opera; "Gibraltar, or the Spanish Adventurer," a 
 failure of Dennis's ; " Farewell Folly," by Motteux ; 
 and the " Quacks," by Swiney oblivion wraps them 
 all. 
 
 In this season Dick Estcourt made his first appear- 
 ance in London as Dominic, in the " Spanish Friar." 
 Of Shakespeare's plays, "Hamlet," "Henry IV.," 
 and " Macbeth," were frequently repeated during the 
 season. 
 
 "Arsinoe," which I have mentioned above, merits 
 a special word in passing, as being the first attempt 
 to establish opera in England, after the fashion of 
 that of Italy. " If this attempt," says Clayton, the
 
 274 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 composer, who understood English no better than he 
 did music, " shall be the means of bringing this man- 
 ner of music to be used in my native country, I shall 
 think my study and pains very well employed." The 
 principal singer was Mrs. Tofts, who for two years 
 had been singing, after the play, at Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, against Marguerite de 1'Epine, the pupil of 
 Greber, and subsequently the ill-favoured but happy 
 wife of Doctor Pepusch, who fondly called her Hecate 
 she answering good-humouredly to the name. The 
 Earl of Nottingham (son of Lord Chancellor Finch), 
 and the Duke of Bedford, who lost by dice more 
 than his father made by the " Bedford Level," patron- 
 ised and went into ecstasy at the song and shake of 
 "the Italian lady," as Marguerite was called. The 
 proud Duke of Somerset, who was as mean as he was 
 proud, and, according to Lord Cowper, as cowardly 
 as he was arrogant, supported native talent, in Mrs. 
 Tofts ; as did also that Duke of Devonshire, whom 
 Evelyn wonderingly saw lose, with calmness, at New- 
 market, ;i,6oo, and who was afterward the munifi- 
 cent lover, and heart -stricken mourner, of another 
 beautiful vocalist, Miss Campion. Mrs. Tofts had 
 another supporter in her too zealous servant, Anne 
 Barwick, who one night went to Drury Lane, and 
 assailed Marguerite with hisses and oranges, to the 
 great disgust of her honest mistress. In such dis- 
 cord did opera commence among us. "Arsinoe," 
 however, had a certain success, toward which the 
 composer, Clayton, contributed little; and he was 
 destined to do less subsequently. 
 
 The season of the rival company was passed in 
 two houses : at Lincoln's Inn Fields, from October
 
 A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY 275 
 
 till the April of 1705, when the company with the 
 "four capital B's," Betterton, Booth, Mrs. Barry, and 
 Mrs. Bracegirdle, removed to the house in the Hay- 
 market, built for them by Vanbrugh, under a sub- 
 scription filled by thirty persons of quality, at ;ioo 
 each, for which they received free admissions for life. 
 Under his license at Lincoln's Inn Fields, Betterton 
 produced nothing of note this season but Rowe's 
 " Biters," a satirical comedy, which failed. At the 
 end of the season he consigned his license to Van- 
 brugh, under whom he engaged as leading tragedian. 
 Vanbrugh opened on the 9th of April, with an opera, 
 the "Triumph of Love." It failed, as did old plays 
 inadequately filled, and new pieces, by Mrs. Fix, 
 Swiney, and one or two other obscure writers, in- 
 cluding Chaves, author of a condemned comedy, the 
 " Cares of Love." Baker describes Chaves as a per- 
 son of no consideration, on the ground that he dedi- 
 cated his play to " Sir William Read, the mounte- 
 bank," who, I think, could very well afford to pay 
 the usual fee. With these poor aids, and many mis- 
 chances, the first season at the Queen's Theatre, on 
 the site of our present Opera House, came to an 
 unsatisfactory conclusion. 
 
 The season of 1705-06, at Drury Lane, with a few 
 nights at Dorset Gardens, would have been equally 
 unsatisfactory, but for one great success to balance 
 the failures of repatching of old pieces, worthless new 
 comedies, and the fruitless struggle of fashionable 
 patrons to sustain Gibber's tragedy, "Perolla and 
 Izadora." The great success was Farquhar's "Re- 
 cruiting Officer," played on the 8th April, 1706, 
 with this cast : Plume, Wilks ; Brazen, Gibber ;
 
 276 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Kite, Estcourt ; Bullock, Bullock ; Balance, Keene ; 
 Worthy, Williams ; Costar Pearmain, Norris ; Apple- 
 tree, Fairbank ; Sylvia, Mrs. Oldfield ; Melinda, Mrs. 
 Rogers ; Rose, Mrs. Susan Mountfort ; Lucy, Mrs. 
 Sapsford. 
 
 This lively comedy was so successful that Tonson, 
 in a fit of liberality, gave the author 1$, and a 
 supplementary half-crown for the copyright. The 
 money was welcome ; for, between having married, 
 or rather being married by, a woman who pretended 
 she had a large fortune, when she really had only a 
 large amount of love for Farquhar, who was more 
 attracted by the pretence than the reality ; between 
 this, his commission sold, his patrons indifferent, his 
 family cares increasing, and his health declining, 
 poor George was in sorry need, yet buoyant spirits. 
 Critics foretold that this play would live for ever ; 
 but unfortunately it has been found impossible to 
 separate the wit and the lively action from the more 
 objectionable parts, and we may not expect to see its 
 revival. Farquhar has drawn on his own experiences 
 in the construction, and all the amiable people in the 
 piece were transcripts of good Shrewsbury folk, whose 
 names have been preserved. Farquhar immortalised 
 the virtues of his hosts, and did not, like Foote, 
 watch them at the tables at which he was a guest, to 
 subsequently expose them to public ridicule. 
 
 " Santlow, famed for dance," first bounded on to 
 the stage during this season, and the heart of Mr. 
 Secretary Craggs bounded in unison. Miss Younger, 
 too, first trod the boards, March, 1706, when about 
 seven years old, as the Princess Elizabeth, in " Virtue 
 Betrayed ; " but perhaps the most notable circum-
 
 A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY 277 
 
 stance of the year was, that the chapel in Russell 
 Court was then building ; but it was under difficulties, 
 to extricate it from which the Drury Lane company 
 played " Hamlet," and handed over the handsome 
 proceeds to the building committee ! 
 
 Vanbrugh's two comedies, the " Confederacy " and 
 the Mistake " (the latter still acted under the title 
 of "Lovers' Quarrels"), Rowe's "Ulysses," the 
 " Faithful General," by an anonymous young lady, 
 a forgotten tragedy, the " Revolution of Sweden," by 
 Mrs. Trotter, an equally forgotten comedy, " Adven- 
 tures in Madrid," by fat Mrs. Fix, tragic, comic, and 
 extravaganza operas, by Lansdown, Durfey, and 
 others, all this novelty, a fair company of actors, 
 troops of dancers, and a company of vocalists with 
 Dick Leveredge and Mrs. Tofts at the head of them, 
 failed to render the often broken but prolonged sea- 
 son of 1705-06, which begun in Lincoln's Inn Fields, 
 and terminated at the house in the Haymarket, profit- 
 able. 
 
 In many respects it did not deserve to be, for Van- 
 brugh, with more wit and humour, and more judg- 
 ment in adaptation than Ravenscroft, sought to bring 
 back comedy to the uncleanliness in which the latter 
 writer had left it. There came a cry, however, from 
 the outer world, against this condition of things. 
 Lord Gardenstone, a lord of seat, I believe, and not 
 a lord of state, as it is said in the north, indignantly 
 remarked of the "Confederacy:" "This is one of 
 those plays which throw infamy on the English stage 
 and general taste, though it is not destitute of wit and 
 humour. A people must be in the last degree de- 
 praved, among whom such public entertainments are
 
 278 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 produced and encouraged. In this symptom of de- 
 generate manners we are, I believe, unmatched by 
 any nation that is, or ever was, in the world." In 
 the "Confederacy," Doggett's fame as an actor cul- 
 minated. He dressed Moneytrap with the care of a 
 true artist. On an old threadbare black coat he 
 tacked new cuffs and collar to make its rustiness more 
 apparent. Genest, quoting Wilks, adds, that the 
 neck of the coat was stuffed so as to make the wearer 
 appear round-shouldered, and give greater prominency 
 to the head. Wearing large, square-toed shoes with 
 huge buckles over his own ordinary pair, made his 
 legs appear smaller than they really were. Doggett, 
 we are told, could paint and mould his face to any 
 age. Kneller recognised in him a superior artist. 
 Sir Godfrey remarks that, " he could only copy nature 
 from the originals before him, but that Doggett could 
 vary them at pleasure, and yet keep a close likeness." 
 It must be confessed the public were more pleased 
 with this piece than with Rowe's " Ulysses," in which 
 Penelope gave so bright an example of conjugal duty 
 and maternal love, in the person of Mrs. Barry, to 
 the Ulysses of Betterton, and the Telemachus of 
 Booth. That public would, perhaps, have cared more 
 for the grace and nature of Addison's " Rosamond," 
 produced at Drury Lane, in March, 1707, with its 
 exquisite flattery cunningly administered to the war- 
 rior who then dwelt near Woodstock, had it been set 
 by a less incompetent musician than William's old 
 band-master, Clayton, the conceited person who un- 
 dertook to improve on Italian example, and who 
 violated the accents and prosody of our language, as 
 well as all rules of musical composition. It is singu-
 
 A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY 279 
 
 lar, however, that neither Arne nor Arnold have been 
 much more successful, in resetting Addison's opera, 
 than Clayton himself. The piece was played but 
 three times, and the author's witty articles against 
 the absurdities of Italian opera are supposed, by some 
 writers, to have owed their satire to the failure of 
 "Rosamond." One great and happy success Addi- 
 son achieved through this piece, which compensated 
 for any disappointment springing from it. Poetical 
 warrant of its excellence was sent to him from many 
 a quarter ; but the brightest wreath, the most elegant, 
 refined, graceful, and the most welcome of all, ema- 
 nated from his own university. Addison, charmed 
 with the lines, inquired after the writer, and dis- 
 covered him in an undergraduate of Queen's College, 
 the son of a poor Cumberland clergyman, and named 
 Thomas Tickell. It was a happy day when both 
 met, for then was laid the foundation of a long and 
 tender friendship. To " Rosamond " and his own 
 musical lines upon it, Tickell owed the felicity of his 
 life, as Addison's friend at home, his secretary in his 
 study, his associate abroad, his assistant and substi- 
 tute in his office of secretary of state, and, finally, 
 less happy but not less honourable, the executor of 
 his patron's will, and the editor of his patron's works. 
 " Rosamond " was produced during one of the 
 most unlucky seasons at Drury Lane, 1706-07 ; dur- 
 ing which, Swiney parted from Rich, took the Hay- 
 market, from Vanbrugh, at a rent of ^5 i per night, 
 and carried with him some of the best actors from 
 Drury. "The deserted company," as they called 
 themselves, advertised the " Recruiting Officer," for 
 their benefit, "in which they pray there may be sing-
 
 28o THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 ing by Mrs. Tofts, in English and Italian ; and some 
 dancing." The mainstay of the season was the 
 " Recruiting Officer." Estcourt was advertised as 
 " The True Sergeant Kite," against Pack, who played 
 it at the Haymarket. At Drury, where Rich de- 
 pended chiefly on opera, it was said that " sound had 
 got the better of sense ; " and the old motto " Vivitur 
 ingenio," was no longer applicable. It is at the 
 Haymarket, says the dedication of "Wit without 
 Money," to Newman, the prompter, that "wit is 
 encouraged, and the player reaps the fruit of his 
 labours, without toiling for those who have always 
 been the oppressors of the stage." 
 
 In the season of 1 706-07, at the Haymarket, Mrs. 
 Oldfield and Mrs. Bracegirdle first played together, 
 the younger actress ultimately winning or van- 
 quishing the town. Gibber, too, joined the company, 
 at the head of whom remained Betterton and Mrs. 
 Barry. Every effort was made to beat opera by a 
 production of pieces of a romantic, or classical cast ; 
 and Addison's pen, in prologue on the stage, or in 
 praise in the Spectator, was wielded in the cause of 
 the players, his neighbours. 
 
 Mrs. Centlivre and Mrs. Manley contributed now- 
 forgotten plays. The former, the " Platonic Lady," 
 in which there is the unpleasant incident of a couple of 
 lovers, who ultimately prove to be brother and sister. 
 Mrs. Manley, in " Almyna," recommended what she 
 had little practised, unlimited exercise of heroic 
 virtue. Some vamped-up old pieces, with new names, 
 were added, and subscription lists were opened, to 
 enable the company, whose interests were espoused 
 by Lord Halifax, to make head against opera. The
 
 A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY 281 
 
 greatest attempt to overcome the latter was made, 
 by producing a truly and drily classical tragedy, by 
 Edmund Smith, called "Phaedra and Hippolytus," 
 which the public would not endure above three nights, 
 to the disgust and astonishment of Addison, as re- 
 corded in the Spectator. Smith, or Neale rather, 
 the former being a name he adopted from a benevo- 
 lent uncle, was not the man to give new lustre to 
 the stage. Scarcely a year had elapsed since he had 
 been expelled from Oxford University ; the brilliancy 
 of his career there could not save him from that dis- 
 grace. His success on the stage, when he made this 
 his sole attempt, was perhaps impeded by the exac- 
 tions of actors and actresses at rehearsal, to suit 
 whose caprices he had to write fresh verses, and fur- 
 nish them with " tags," whereby to secure applause, 
 as they made their exit. The play fell, and the 
 author with it. The once brilliant scholar descended 
 to become a sot. The once best-dressed fop of his 
 day became known by the nickname of " Captain 
 Rag ; " and as neither his wild life nor his careless 
 style of costume seriously affected his great personal 
 beauty, the women, tempering justice with clemency, 
 called him the Handsome Sloven ! This scholar, 
 poet, critic, and drunkard, attempted to recover his 
 reputation, by writing a tragedy, on the subject of 
 Lady Jane Grey ; but he died in the attempt. 
 
 A greater dramatist than he died this season, in a 
 blaze of triumph from the stage, under the dull cloud 
 of poverty at home, George Farquhar. His joy- 
 ous "Beaux' Stratagem," first played on the 8th of 
 March, 1 707, was written in six painful weeks. Ton- 
 son gave him .30 for the right of printing, and this,
 
 282 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 with what he received from the managers, solaced 
 the last weeks of the life of the ex-captain, who had 
 sold his commission, and had been deluded by a 
 patron who had promised to obtain preferment for 
 him. Farquhar had lost everything but sense of 
 pain and flow of spirits. He died in April, 1707, 
 while the public were being enchanted by his comedy, 
 so rich in delineation of character and in variety 
 of incident. It was thus cast : Aimwell, Mills ; 
 Archer, Wilks ; Scrub, Norris ; Foigard, Bowen (then 
 newly come from Ireland) ; Boniface, Bullock ; Sul- 
 len, Verbruggen (his last original character ; the 
 stage was thoughtful of his orphan children as it was 
 of those of Farquhar) ; Gibbet, Gibber ; Count Bel- 
 lair, Bowman ; Sir Charles Freeman, Keene ; Lady 
 Bountiful, Mrs. Powell ; Mrs. Sullen, Mrs. Oldfield ; 
 Cherry, Mrs. Bicknell ; Dorinda, Mrs. Bradshaw. 
 This piece was the great glory of the Haymarket 
 season, 1706-07. 
 
 The season of 1707-08 was the last for a time of 
 the two opposing houses, and it requires but a brief 
 notice. Powell at Drury Lane was weak as leading 
 tragedian against Betterton at the Haymarket, and 
 Rich, the manager, produced no new piece. At the 
 rival house the novelties were Gibber's adaptations 
 of two or three forgotten plays, the bricks with which 
 he built up his, at first "hounded," but ultimately 
 successful, "Double Gallant," in which he played 
 Atall ; the same author's " Lady's Last Stake," a 
 heavy comedy; and Rowe's "Royal Convert," a 
 heavier tragedy of the times of Hengist and Horsa. 
 In this play, the courtly author bade for the bays 
 (which were not to encircle his brows till the acces-
 
 A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY 283 
 
 sion of George I.), by introducing a complimentary 
 prophecy alluding to Queen Anne and the then 
 much-canvassed union of England and Scotland. 
 This was, perhaps, not worse than the references 
 made by the savage Saxon Rodogune to Venus, and 
 to the eagle that bore Jove's thunder ! There are, 
 nevertheless, some stately scenes in this play. Of 
 its failure, Rowe did not complain; he simply, on 
 printing it, quoted the words, " Laudatur et alget" 
 on the title-page. Critics have thought that the 
 story was of too religious a texture to please. It 
 was too obscure to excite interest. 
 
 At the end of this season the two companies were 
 ordered, by the lord chamberlain, to unite ; and they 
 were not indisposed to obey. The patent for Drury 
 Lane was then held by Rich and Sir Thomas Skip- 
 with, who had formerly held a larger share. The 
 Monthly Mirror, for March, 1708, says that Rich's 
 father was an attorney, to one of whose clients Sir 
 Thomas owed a large sum of money. Being unable 
 to pay it, he put up a part of his theatrical patent to 
 auction, and Rich bought the share for 80 ! In 
 Christopher Rich's time a quarter share was sold to 
 Colman for .20,000. Sir Thomas now consigned 
 what share he held to Colonel Brett, a man more 
 famous as the husband of the divorced wife of 
 Charles Gerard, second Earl of Macclesfield, of whom 
 fiction still makes the mother of Savage, the poet, 
 and as the father of Anne Brett, George I.'s English 
 mistress, than for aught else, except it be that he 
 was the friend of Colley Gibber. It was by Colonel 
 Brett's influence that the union of the companies was 
 effected, under the patent held by him and Rich ;
 
 284 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 and henceforward the great house in the Haymarket 
 was given up to Swiney and Italian opera, at the fol- 
 lowing prices for admission, which will be found to 
 form a strong contrast with those at present ex- 
 tracted from the British pocket : Stage-boxes, los. 
 6d. ; boxes, 8s. ; pit, $s. ; lower gallery, 2s. 6d. ; 
 upper gallery, is. 6d. 
 
 I have stated above that the union of the com- 
 panies was the result of an order from the lord 
 chamberlain. How absolute was the authority of 
 this official may be gathered from various incidents 
 on record. Gibber cites one to this effect : Powell, 
 the actor, holding controversy on theatrical matters, 
 at Will's Coffee-house, was so excited as to strike 
 one of the speakers on the opposite side. Unluckily, 
 this speaker was a kinsman of the master or manager 
 of the house where Powell played, and he rushed to 
 the chamberlain's office to obtain redress, that is ven- 
 geance. In the absence of the supreme officer, the 
 vice-chamberlain took up the quarrel. He probably 
 ordered the actor to offer an apology ; and he cer- 
 tainly shut up Drury Lane Theatre, because the 
 manager, who had received no communication from 
 him, had permitted Powell to appear before such 
 reparation was made. The embarrassed company of 
 comedians were not allowed to resume their calling 
 for two or three days, and thus serious injury was 
 inflicted on such actors as were paid only on the days 
 of performance. This was in King William's reign, 
 but the power was not less, nor less absolutely exer- 
 cised, in the reign of Queen Anne ; and on this very 
 occasion which led to the chamberlain's order for the 
 union of the companies. Great dissension had arisen
 
 A SEVEN YEARS' RIVALRY 285 
 
 at Drury Lane by a new arrangement with respect 
 to benefits, whereby the patentees took a third of the 
 receipts. The more discontented went over to the 
 Haymarket ; others remained, protested, and sought 
 for redress at the legal tribunal. Gibber will best 
 tell what followed : 
 
 " Several little disgraces were put upon them, par- 
 ticularly in the disposal of parts in plays to be 
 revived ; and as visible a partiality was shown in the 
 promotion of those in their interest, though their 
 endeavours to serve them could be of no extraordi- 
 nary use. All this while the other party were pas- 
 sively silent, till one day, the actor who particularly 
 solicited their cause at the lord chamberlain's office, 
 being shown there the order signed for absolutely 
 silencing the patentees, and ready to be served, flew 
 back with the news to his companions, then at a 
 rehearsal, at which he had been wanted ; when being 
 called to his part, and something hastily questioned 
 by the patentee for his neglect of business, this actor, 
 I say, with an erected look and a theatrical spirit, at 
 once threw off the mask, and roundly told him : ' Sir, 
 I have now no more business here than you have. 
 In half an hour you will neither have actors to com- 
 mand, nor authority to employ them.' The patentee 
 who, though he could not readily comprehend his 
 mysterious manner of speaking, had just glimpse of 
 terror enough from the words to soften his reproof 
 into a cold formal declaration, that ' if he would not 
 do his work he should not be paid.' But now, to 
 complete the catastrophe of these theatrical commo- 
 tions, enters the messenger, with the order of silence 
 in his hands, whom the same actor officiously intro-
 
 286 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 duced, telling the patentee that the gentleman wanted 
 to speak with him, from the lord chamberlain. When 
 the messenger had delivered the order, the actor, 
 throwing his head over his shoulder, toward the 
 patentee, in the manner of Shakespeare's Harry 
 VIII. to Cardinal Wolsey, cried : ' Read o'er that ! 
 and then to breakfast, with what appetite you may ! ' 
 Though these words might be spoken in too vin- 
 dictive and insulting a manner to be commended, 
 yet, from the fulness of a heart injuriously treated, 
 and now relieved on that instant occasion, why might 
 they not be pardoned ? The authority of the patent 
 now no longer subsisting, all the confederated actors 
 immediately walked out of the house, to which they 
 never returned, till they became themselves the ten- 
 ants and masters of it." 
 
 Let me note here that in May, 1708, Vanbrugh 
 wrote to Lord Manchester : " I have parted with my 
 whole concern (the Queen's Theatre, Hay market) to 
 Mr. Swiney, only reserving my rent, so he is entire 
 possessor of the opera, and most people think will 
 manage it better than anybody. He has a good deal 
 of money in his pocket, that he got before by the 
 acting company, and is willing to venture it upon the 
 singers." This proves that the lack of prosperity, 
 which marked the end of the last century, did not 
 distinguish the beginning of the new.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE UNITED AND THE DISUNITED COMPANIES 
 
 THE names of Betterton, Booth, Wilks, Gibber, 
 Mills, Powell, Estcourt, Pinkethman, Jr., Keene, 
 Norris, Bullock, Pack, Johnson, Bowen, Thurmond, 
 Bickerstaff; of Mistresses Barry, Bradshaw, Old- 
 field, Powell, Rogers, Saunders, Bicknell, Knight, 
 Porter, Susan Mountfort, and Cross, indicate the 
 quality of a company, which commenced acting at 
 Drury Lane, and which, in some respects, was per- 
 haps never equalled; though it did not at first realise 
 a corresponding success. Betterton only "played" 
 occasionally, though he invariably acted well. The 
 new pieces produced, failed to please. The young 
 Kentish attorney, and future editor of Shakespeare, 
 Theobald, gave the first of about a score of for- 
 gotten dramas to the stage ; but his " Persian 
 Princess " swept it but once or twice with her train. 
 Tavernor, the proctor, who could paint landscapes 
 almost as ably as Caspar Poussin, proved but a poor 
 dramatist ; and his " Maid the Mistress," was barely 
 listened to. 
 
 Matters did not improve in 1708-09, in which sea- 
 son Brett's share of the patent was made over to 
 Wilks, Gibber, and Estcourt, the other shares 
 amounting to nearly a dozen. The only success of 
 
 ?8 7
 
 288 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 this season was achieved by Mrs. Centlivre's " Busy- 
 body " (Marplot, by Pack), and that was a success of 
 slow growth. Baker, who had ridiculed his own 
 effeminate ways in Maiden ("Tunbridge Walks"), 
 satirised the women ; but the public hissed his " Fine 
 Lady's Airs," almost as much as they did Tom 
 Durfey's " Prophets." In the latter piece, rakish, 
 careless, penniless Tom laughed at the religious im- 
 postors of the day who dealt with the past dead and 
 with future events; but the public did not see the 
 fun of it, and damned the play, whose author survived 
 to write worse. Then there was the "Appius and 
 Virginia," of Dennis, of which nothing survives but 
 the theatrical thunder, invented by the author for this 
 tragedy, and the use of which, after the public had 
 condemned the drama of a man who equally feared 
 France abroad and bailiffs at home, was always re- 
 sented by him as a plagiarism. In this piece, Better- 
 ton acted the last of his long list of the dramatic 
 characters created by him, Virginius. Shortly 
 after this took place that famous complimentary 
 benefit for the old player, when the pit tickets were 
 paid for at a guinea each. The actors could scarcely 
 get through "Love for Love," in which he played 
 Valentine, for the cloud of noble patrons clustered 
 on the stage, when guineas by the score were deli- 
 cately pressed upon him for acceptance, and Mis- 
 tresses Barry and Bracegirdle supported him at the 
 close; while the former spoke the epilogue, which 
 was the dramatic apotheosis of Betterton himself. 
 
 On the following June, actors and patentees were 
 at issue, and their dissensions were not quelled by 
 the lord chamberlain closing the house ; from which
 
 THE UNITED AND DISUNITED COMPANIES 289 
 
 Rich, of whose oppressions the actors complained, 
 was driven by Collier, the M. P. for Truro, to whom, 
 for political as well as other reasons, a license was 
 granted to open Drury Lane. When Collier took 
 forcible possession of the house, he found that Rich 
 had carried off most of the scenery and costumes; 
 but he made the best of adverse circumstances and a 
 company lacking Betterton and other able actors, 
 and he opened Drury on November 23d, 1709, under 
 the direction of Aaron Hill, with " Aurungzebe," 
 and Booth for his leading tragedian. 
 
 Booth wished to appear in a new tragedy, and Hill 
 wrote, in a week, that " Elfrid " which the public 
 damned in a night. Hill was always ready to write. 
 At Westminster, he had filled his pockets by writing 
 the exercises of young gentlemen who had not wit 
 for the work ; and by and by he will be writing the 
 "Bastard," for Savage. Meanwhile, here was "El- 
 frid," written and condemned. The author allowed 
 that it was "an unpruned wilderness of fancy, with 
 here and there a flower among the leaves, but without 
 any fruit of judgment." At this time, Hill was a 
 young fellow of four and twenty, with great experi- 
 ence and some reputation. A friendless young 
 " Westminster," he had at fifteen found his way alone 
 to Constantinople, where he obtained a patron in the 
 ambassador, the sixth Lord Paget, a distant rela- 
 tion of the youthful Aaron. Under the peer's aus- 
 pices, Hill travelled extensively in the East ; and 
 subsequently, ere he was yet twenty, accompanied Sir 
 William Wentworth, as travelling tutor, over most of 
 Europe. Later, his poem of " Camillus," in defence 
 of Lord Peterborough, procured for him the post of
 
 290 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 secretary to that brave and eccentric peer, with whom 
 he remained till his marriage. Then Aaron lived 
 with a divided allegiance to his wife and the stage, 
 for the improvement of which he had many an im- 
 practicable theory. He would willingly have written 
 a tragedy for Booth once a week. 
 
 Tragedies not being in request, Hill tried farce, 
 and produced his " Walking Statue," a screamer, as 
 improbable as his "Elfrid" was unpruned. The 
 audience would not tolerate it ; and Hill came before 
 them in a few days with a comedy, "Trick upon 
 Trick," at which the house howled rather than 
 laughed. Whereupon, Hill new-nibbed his pen, and 
 addressed himself to composition again. 
 
 The treasury gained more by the appearance of 
 Elrington, in " Oronooko," than by Hill's novelties. 
 Then, the trial of putting the fairy dancer, Santlow, 
 into boy's clothes, and giving her the small part of 
 the Eunuch in " Valentinian " to play, and an epilogue 
 to be spoken in male attire, succeeded so well, that 
 she was cast for Dorcas Zeal in Charles Shadwell's 
 " Fair Quaker of Deal," wherein she took the town, 
 and won the heart of Booth. In this character-piece 
 Flip, the sea-brute, is contrasted with Beau Mizen, 
 the sea-fop, but the latter is, in some degree, a copy 
 of Baker's Maiden, the progenitor of the family of 
 Dundreary. 
 
 From Collier, there went over to the Haymarket, 
 under Swiney, Betterton, Wilks, Cibber, Doggett, 
 Mills, Mrs. Barry, Oldfield, and other actors of mark. 
 Drury had opened with Dryden. The Queen's 
 Theatre, Haymarket, commenced its season on the 
 1 5th of September, 1709, with Shakespeare. The
 
 THE UNITED AND DISUNITED COMPANIES 291 
 
 play was "Othello," with Betterton in the Moor; 
 but oh! shade of the bard of Avon, there was be- 
 tween the acts a performance by "a Mr. Higgins, a 
 posture-master from Holland," and the critics, silently 
 admiring "old Thomas," loudly pronounced the feats 
 of the pseudo-Hollander to be "marvellous." The 
 only great event of the season was the death of Bet- 
 terton, soon after his benefit, on the I3th of April, 
 1710, of which I have already spoken at length. 
 
 About this period the word encore was introduced 
 at the operatic performances in the Haymarket, and 
 very much objected to by plain-going Englishmen. 
 It was also the custom of some who desired the repe- 
 tition of a song, to cry altra volta ! altra volta ! The 
 Italian phrase was denounced as vigorously as the 
 French exclamation ; and a writer in the Spectator 
 asks, when it may be proper for him to say it in 
 English ? and would it be vulgar to shout again ! 
 again ! 
 
 The season of 1710-11 was a languishing one. 
 Players and playgoers seem to feel that the great 
 glory of the stage was extinguished, in the death of 
 Betterton and the departure of Mrs. Barry. Collier, 
 restless and capricious, gave up Drury Lane for 
 opera at the Haymarket, Swiney exchanging with 
 him. The united company of actors assembling at 
 the former, contributed ^200 a year as a sort of 
 compensation to Collier, as well as refraining from 
 playing on a Wednesday when an opera was given on 
 that night. The Thursday audiences were all the 
 larger for this ; but the inferior actors, who were 
 paid by the day, felt the hardship of this arrange- 
 ment, and noblemen, who espoused the part of the
 
 292 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 English players against the foreign singers, expressed 
 an opinion, as they walked about behind the scenes, 
 that " it was shameful to take part of the actors' bread 
 from them, to support the silly diversions of people of 
 quality." 
 
 Booth and Powell shared the inheritance of Better- 
 ton, and Mrs. Bradshaw succeeded to that of Mrs. 
 Barry ; but Mrs. Porter was soon to dispute it with 
 her. The old stock pieces were well cast, but no 
 new play obtained toleration for above a night or two. 
 Mrs. Centlivre's "Marplot," a poor sequel to the 
 " Busy Body," brought her nothing more substantial 
 than a dedication fee of 40 from the Earl of Port- 
 land, the son of William III.'s " Bentinck." This was 
 more than Johnson obtained for dedicating his con- 
 demned comedy, the "Generous Husband," to the 
 last of the three Lords Ashburnham, who were alive 
 in 1710. Poor Elkanah Settle, too, pensioned poet 
 of the city, and a brother of the Charterhouse, was 
 employed by Booth to adapt Beaumont and Fletcher's 
 " Knight of the Burning Pestle," which Elkanah 
 transformed to the "City Ramble," Booth playing 
 Rinaldo. Settle was so unpopular at this time, that 
 he brought out his play in the summer season when 
 the town was scantily peopled. The only result 
 was that it was damned by a thin house instead of 
 a crowded one. 
 
 At the close of the season Swiney returned to the 
 opera ; Collier to Drury Lane, under a new license 
 to himself, Wilks, Cibber, and Doggett. Collier with- 
 drew, however, from the management, and the three 
 actors named paid him 700 a year for doing noth- 
 ing. From this time may be dated the real pros-
 
 THE UNITED AND DISUNITED COMPANIES 293 
 
 parity of the sole and united company of actors, for 
 whom a halcyon score of years was now beginning. 
 On the other hand the opera only brought ruin, and 
 drove into exile its able but unlucky manager, 
 Swiney.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 UNION, STRENGTH, PROSPERITY 
 
 NATURALLY and justifiably jubilant is Colley Cib- 
 ber when giving the history of the united companies. 
 That union led to a prosperity of twenty years, though 
 the union itself did not last so long. We now find 
 houses crowded beyond anything known to that 
 generation ; and that not so much from surpassing 
 excellence on the part of the actors, as from their 
 zeal, industry, and the willingness with which they 
 worked together. This success doubled the salaries 
 of the comedians, and " in the twenty years, while 
 we were our own directors," says Colley, with honest 
 pride, " we never had a creditor that had occasion to 
 come twice for his bill ; every Monday morning dis- 
 charged us of all commands, before we took a shilling 
 for our own use." 
 
 These halcyon days had, no doubt, their little 
 passing clouds ; some prejudice and jealousies would 
 arise among the leaders, as excellence began to mani- 
 fest itself from below ; but these, as Cibber remarks, 
 with a lofty philosophy, were " frailties, which socie- 
 ties of a higher consideration, while they are com- 
 posed of men, will never be entirely free from." 
 Cibber and his fellows deserved to prosper. Al- 
 though they enjoyed a monopoly they did not abuse 
 
 294
 
 UNION, STRENGTH, PROSPERITY 295 
 
 it ; and ; 1,500 profit to each of the three managers, 
 in one year, the greatest sum ever yet so realised on 
 the English stage, showed what might be done, with- 
 out the aid of " those barbarous entertainments," of 
 acrobats and similar personages, for which the digni- 
 fied Gibber had the most profound and wholesome 
 horror. 
 
 While the management was in the hands of Gibber, 
 Wilks, and Doggett, the good temper of the first was 
 imperturbable. He yielded, or seemed to yield, to 
 the hot hastiness of Wilks, and lent himself to the 
 captious waywardness of Doggett. However imprac- 
 ticable the latter was, Gibber always left a way open 
 to reconciliation. In the very bitterest of their 
 feuds, " I never failed to give him my hat and your 
 servant,' whenever I met him, neither of which he 
 would ever return for above a year after ; but I still 
 persisted in my usual salutation, without observing 
 whether it was civilly received or not." Doggett 
 would sit sullen and silent, at the same table with 
 Gibber, at Will's the young gentlemen of the town 
 loitering about the room, to listen to the critics, or 
 look at the actors and Gibber would treat the old 
 player with deference, till the latter would graciously 
 please to be softened, and ask for a pinch of snuff 
 from Colley's box, in token of reconciliation. 
 
 Almost the only word approaching to complaint 
 advanced by Gibber refers to public criticism. The 
 newspapers, and especially Mist's Journal, he says, 
 " took upon them very often to censure our manage- 
 ment, with the same freedom and severity as if we 
 had been so many ministers of state." This is 
 thoroughly Cibberian in humour and expression.
 
 296 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 For these critics, however, Colley had a supreme 
 contempt. Wilks and Booth, who succeeded Dog- 
 gett, were more sensitive, and would fain have made 
 reply; but Gibber remarked that the noise made 
 by the critics was a sign of the ability and success of 
 the management. If we were insignificant, said he, 
 and played only to empty houses, these fellows would 
 be silent. 
 
 When the fashion of patronising the folly of pan- 
 tomimes came in, Gibber reluctantly produced one 
 at Drury Lane, but only "as crutches to the plays." 
 In the regular drama itself, it seemed immaterial to 
 him what he acted, so that the piece was well sup- 
 ported ; and, accordingly, when the "Orphan" was 
 revived, and the town had just been falsely told that 
 Gibber was dead, " I quietly stole myself," he says, 
 " into the part of the Chaplain, which I had not been 
 seen in for many years before ; " and as the audience 
 received him with delight, Colley was satisfied and 
 triumphant. 
 
 In the first season the poets were less successful 
 than the players ; Johnson's " Wife's Relief," and 
 Mrs. Centlivre's " Perplexed Lovers," were failures. 
 But the lady fell with some Mat. The epilogue pro- 
 duced more sensation than the play. Prince Eugene 
 was then in England, and to Mrs. Oldfield were en- 
 trusted lines complimentary to the military talents 
 of the prince, and his brother in arms, the Duke of 
 Marlborough. Political feuds were then so embit- 
 tered, that the managers were afraid to allow the 
 epilogue to be spoken ; but on the second night, they 
 fortified themselves by the chamberlain's license, and 
 brave Mistress Oldfield delivered it, in spite of men-
 
 UNION, STRENGTH, PROSPERITY 297 
 
 acing letters addressed to her. The piece fell ; but 
 the authoress printed it, with a tribute of rhymed 
 homage to the prince, who acknowledged the same 
 by sending her a handsome and heavy gold snuff-box, 
 with this inscription : " The present of his High- 
 ness Prince Eugene of Savoy to Susanna Centlivre." 
 Those heavy boxes some of them furnished with 
 a tube and spring for shooting the snuff up the nose, 
 were then in fashion, and prince could hardly give 
 more fitting present to poetess than a snuff-box, for 
 which 
 
 " Distant climes their various arts employ, 
 To adorn and to complete the modish toy. 
 Hinges with close-wrought joints from Paris come, 
 Pictures dear bought from Venice and from Rome. 
 
 Some think the part too small of modish sand, 
 Which at a niggard pinch they can command. 
 Nor can their fingers for their task suffice, 
 Their nose too greedy, not their hand too nice, 
 To such a height with these is fashion grown, 
 They feed their very nostrils with a spoon." 
 
 So sang the Reverend Samuel Wesley, in his some- 
 what indelicate satire on snuff, addressed to his sister, 
 Keziah. Mrs. Centlivre's box probably figured at 
 Drury Lane, and in very good company, with other 
 boxes carried by ladies ; for, says the poet : 
 
 " They can enchant the fair to such degree, 
 Scarce more admired could French romances be, 
 Scarce scandal more beloved or darling flattery ; 
 Whether to th' India House they take their way, 
 Loiter i' the Park, or at the toilet stay, 
 Whether at church they shine, or sparkle at the play."
 
 298 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 The great night of this season was that in which 
 Philips's version of Racine's " Andromaque " was 
 played the i/th of March, 1712. Of the "Dis- 
 tressed Mother," the following was the original cast : 
 Orestes, Powell ; Pyrrhus, Booth ; Pylades, Mills ; 
 Andromache, Mrs. Oldfield ; Hermione, Mrs. Porter. 
 The English piece is even duller than the French 
 one ; but there is great scope in it for good declam- 
 atory actors, and Booth especially led the town on 
 this night to see in him the undoubted successor of 
 Betterton. 
 
 All that could be done to render success assured 
 was done on this occasion, not only by the poet, but 
 by his friends. Before the tragedy was acted the 
 Spectator informed the public that a masterpiece was 
 about to be represented. On the first night there 
 was a packed audience of hearty supporters. During 
 the run of the play, the Spectator related the effect 
 the tender tale had on Sir Roger de Coverley. 
 
 We learn from Addison, in the puff preliminary, 
 that at the reading of the "Distressed Mother," by 
 one of the actors, the players, who listened, were 
 moved to tears, and that the reader, in his turn, was 
 so overcome by his emotions " that he was frequently 
 obliged to lay down the book, and pause, to recover 
 himself and give vent to the humanity which rose in 
 him at some irresistible touches of the imagined sor- 
 row." On the first night of its being played, the 
 performance was said to be " at the desire of several 
 ladies of quality." Sir Roger de Coverley, with Will 
 Honey combe and Captain Sentry, backed by two or 
 three old servants, the captain wearing the sword 
 he had wielded at Steinkirk, are described as being
 
 UNION, STRENGTH, PROSPERITY 299 
 
 in the pit, early four o'clock, before the house was 
 full and the candles were lighted. There was access 
 then for the public for a couple of hours before the 
 curtain rose. The knight thought the King of 
 France could not strut it more imposingly than 
 Booth in Pyrrhus. He found the plot so ingeniously 
 complicated, that he could not guess how it would 
 end, or what would become of Pyrrhus. His sympa- 
 thies oscillated between the ladies, with a word of 
 smart censure now and then for either ; calling An- 
 dromache a perverse widow, and anon, Hermione 
 "a notable young baggage." Turgid as this English 
 adaptation now seems, to Addison, its simplicity 
 was one of its great merits. "Why!" says Sir 
 Roger, "there is not a single sentence in the play 
 that I don't know the meaning of ! " It was listened 
 to with a "very remarkable silence and stillness," 
 broken only by the applause ; and a compliment is 
 paid to Mills, who played Pylades, in the remark, 
 " though he speaks but little, I like the old fellow in 
 whiskers as well as any of them." 
 
 The epilogue, spoken by Mrs. Oldfield, and un- 
 doing all the soft emotions wrought by the tragedy, 
 was repeated twice, for several consecutive nights. 
 The audience could not have enough of it, and long 
 years after they called for it, whenever the piece was 
 revived. Budgell was the reputed author, but Ton- 
 son printed it with Addison's name as the writer. 
 The latter, however, ordered that of Budgell to be 
 restored, "that it might add weight to the solicitation 
 which he was then making for a place." 
 
 Thus Ambrose Philips showed'that he could write 
 something more vigorous than the Pastorals, which
 
 30 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 had given him a name while at the university. He 
 took higher rank among the wits at Button's Coffee- 
 house, and had no reason to fear the censure or ridi- 
 cule of men like Henry Carey, who fastened upon 
 him the name of Namby Pamby. Success made the 
 author not less solemn, but more pompous. He 
 wore the sword, which he could boldly use, although 
 his foes called him Quaker Philips, with an air; 
 and the successful author of a new tragedy could 
 become arrogant enough to hang a rod up at But- 
 ton's and threaten Pope with a degrading application 
 of it for having expressed contempt of the author's 
 Pastorals. 
 
 Whatever may be thought of this, Rowe and 
 Philips were the first authors of the last century who 
 wrote tragedies which have been played in our own 
 times. But a greater than either was rising ; for 
 Addison was giving the last touches to " Cato ; " and 
 he, with Steele, and others, was imparting his views 
 and ideas on the subject to favourite actors over 
 tavern dinners. 
 
 At the close of this season was finished the brief 
 career of an actor who was generally considered to 
 possess rare talents, but who was variously judged of 
 by such competent judicial authority as Steele and 
 Cibber. I allude to Richard Estcourt. His London 
 career as a player lasted little more than half a 
 dozen years, during which he distinguished himself 
 by creating Sergeant Kite and Sir Francis Gripe. 
 Downes asserts that he was a born actor. Steele 
 mournfully says, "If I were to speak of merit neg- 
 lected, misapplied, or misunderstood, might I not say 
 that Estcourt has a great capacity? but it is not
 
 UNION, STRENGTH, PROSPERITY 301 
 
 the interest of those who bear a figure on the stage 
 that his talents were understood. It is their business 
 to impose upon him what cannot become him, or 
 keep out of his hands anything in which he could 
 shine." Chetwood alludes to his habit of interpo- 
 lating jokes and catches of his own, which raised a 
 laugh among the general public, but which made 
 critics frown. Gibber has been accused of being 
 unjust to him, but Colley's judgment seems to 
 be rendered with his usual fairness, lucidity, and 
 skill. 
 
 "This man," says Gibber in his "Apology," "was 
 so amazing and extraordinary a mimic, that no man 
 or woman, from the coquette to the Privy-Councillor, 
 ever moved or spoke before him, but he could carry 
 their voice, look, mien, and motion instantly into 
 another company. I have heard him make long 
 harangues and form various arguments, even in the 
 manner of thinking, of an eminent pleader at the bar 
 with every the least article and singularity of his 
 utterance so perfectly imitated that he was the very 
 alter ipse, scarce to be distinguished from his original. 
 Yet more, I have seen upon the margin of the writ- 
 ten part of Falstaff, which he acted, his own notes 
 and observations upon almost every speech of it, de- 
 scribing the true spirit of the humour, and with what 
 tone of voice, with what look or gesture, each of them 
 ought to be delivered. Yet in his execution upon 
 the stage, he seemed to have lost all those just ideas 
 he had formed of it, and almost through the char- 
 acter he laboured under a heavy load of flatness. In 
 a word, with all his skill in mimicry, and knowledge 
 of what ought to be done, he never upon the stage
 
 302 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 could bring it truly into practice, but was, upon the 
 whole, a languid, unaffecting actor." 
 
 His Kite, however, is said to have been full of 
 lively, dashing, natural humour. Off the stage, Est- 
 court's society was eagerly sought for, and he was to 
 be met in the best company, where, on festive nights, 
 he recited, gave his imitations, and was not too proud to 
 pocket his guerdon. The old Duke of Marlborough 
 gladly held fellowship with Estcourt, and as the 
 latter occasionally got guerdon out of the duke, he 
 must have been a great and a very affecting actor 
 indeed. It was probably his spirit of good-fellowship 
 which induced him to leave the stage (in 1711) for 
 another calling. This change was sufficiently impor- 
 tant for the Spectator to notice, with a fine bit of 
 raillery, too : " Estcourt has lain in at the Bumper, 
 Covent Garden, neat, natural wines, to be sold whole- 
 sale, as well as retail, by his old servant, trusty An- 
 thony (Aston). As Estcourt is a person altogether 
 unknowing in the wine trade, it cannot but be 
 doubted that he will deliver the wine in the same 
 natural purity that he receives it from the merchants, 
 etc." 
 
 On the foundation of the "Beef Steak Club," 
 Estcourt was appointed Providore ; and in the exer- 
 cise of this office to the chief wits and leading men 
 of the nation, he wore a small gold gridiron, sus- 
 pended around his neck by a green silk riband. 
 Doctor King alludes to the company, their qualities, 
 and the dignity of the ex-actor, in his " Art of 
 Cookery : " 
 
 " He that of honour, wit, and mirth partakes, 
 May be a fit companion o'er beef steaks.
 
 UNION, STRENGTH, PROSPERITY 303 
 
 His name may be to future times unroll'd, 
 
 In Estcourt's book, whose gridiron's made of gold." 
 
 Estcourt died in 1712, and was buried in the " yard " 
 of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. Near him lie Kynaston 
 and Wycherley, Susanna Centlivre, Wilks, Macklin, 
 and other once vivacious stage celebrities of later 
 times. 
 
 I have already had to notice, and shall have to do 
 so again, the despotic power exercised by the lord 
 chamberlain over theatrical affairs. One of the most 
 remarkable instances presents itself this year, in 
 connection with the Opera House, indeed, but still 
 illustrative of my subject. John Hughes, who will 
 subsequently appear as a dramatic author, of purer 
 pretensions, had written the words for the composer 
 of "Calypso and Telemachus." A crowd of the 
 "quality," connoisseurs and amateurs, had attended 
 the rehearsal, with which they were so satisfied that 
 a subscription was formed to support the performance 
 of the opera. This aroused the jealousy of the 
 Italian company then in London, who appealed for 
 protection to the Duke of Shrewsbury, the then 
 chamberlain. 
 
 This duke was the Charles Talbot, in whose house 
 it had been decided that William of Orange should 
 be invited to England, and who, corresponding with 
 James after William was on the throne, had been 
 discovered, and forgiven. He had been loved, it is 
 said, by Queen Mary and the Duchess of Marlborough ; 
 but this able, gentle, wayward, and one-eyed states- 
 man was at this present time the husband of an 
 Italian lady, and on this fact, albeit she was not a
 
 304 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 dulcts uxor, the Italian singers founded their hopes. 
 As the lady's brother was hanged at Tyburn, half 
 a dozen years later, fcfr murdering his servant, Shrews- 
 bury had no great cause, ultimately, to be proud of 
 the connection. Nevertheless, it served the purpose 
 of the foreign vocalists, it would seem, as the cham- 
 berlain protected their interests, and issued an order 
 for the suppression of the subscription, adding, that 
 the doors must be opened at the lowest playhouse 
 prices, or not at all. Even under this discouragement 
 the opera was played with success, and was subse- 
 quently revived, with good effect, at Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields. 
 
 Romantic drama, light, bustling comedy, with less 
 vice and not much less wit than of old, and the 
 severest classical tragedy, challenged the favour of 
 the town in the Drury Lane season of 1712-13. 
 Severe tragedy won the wreath from its compet- 
 itors. 
 
 First on the list was fat Charles Johnson, who was 
 even a more frequent lounger at Button's than Am- 
 brose Philips, and who had a play ready for represen- 
 tation every year and a half. It is a curious fact 
 that his " Successful Pirate," a sort of melodrama, in 
 five acts, the scene in Madagascar, and the action 
 made up of fighting and wooing, aroused the ire of 
 the virtuous Dennis. This censor wrote to the lord 
 chamberlain, complaining that in such a piece as the 
 above the stage was prostituted, villainy encouraged, 
 and the theatre disgraced ; that same theatre where, 
 a few nights previously, had been acted the " Old 
 Bachelor," and the " Committee," which some people, 
 like Sir Roger, considered a "good Church of Eng-
 
 UNION, STRENGTH, PROSPERITY 305 
 
 land comedy." The piece, however, made no im- 
 pression ; nor was much greater effected by that 
 learned proctor, Taverner's " French Advocates," nor 
 by the farcical " Humours of the Army," which the 
 ex-soldier, Charles Shadwell, had partly constructed 
 out of his own military reminiscences, as he sat at 
 his desk in the revenue office at Dublin. 
 
 Equally indifferent were the public to a comedy 
 called the " Wife of Bath," written by a young man 
 who had been a mercer's apprentice in the Strand, 
 and who was now house-steward and man of busi- 
 ness to the widowed Duchess of Monmouth at her 
 residence, no longer in the mansion on the south 
 side of Soho Square, about to be turned into auction 
 rooms, but in fresh, pure, rustic Hedge Lane, which 
 now, as Whitcombe Street, lacks all freshness, purity, 
 and rusticity. The young man's name was Gay ; 
 but it was not on this occasion that he was to make 
 it famous. 
 
 In stern tragedy, the " Heroic Daughter," founded 
 on Corneille's " Cid," wrung no tears, and " Cinna's 
 Conspiracy" raised no emotions. The sole success 
 of the season in this line was Addison's " Cato," first 
 played on the I4th of April, 1713 ; thus cast : Cato, 
 Booth ; Syphax, Gibber ; Juba, Wilks ; Portius, Pow- 
 ell ; Sempronius, Mills ; Marcus, Ryan ; Decius, Bo- 
 man ; Lucius, Keen ; Marcia, Mrs. Oldfield ; Lucia, 
 Mrs. Porter. 
 
 Of the success of this tragedy, a compound of 
 transcendent beauties and absurdity, I shall speak, 
 when treating of Booth, apart. It established that 
 actor as the great master of his art, and it brought 
 into notice young Ryan, the intelligent son of an
 
 306 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Irish tailor, a good actor, and a true gentleman. 
 " Cato " had the good fortune to be represented by 
 a band of superior actors, who had been enlightened 
 by the instruction of Addison, and stimulated at re- 
 hearsals, by the sarcasm of Swift. Factions united in 
 applause ; purses not bouquets were presented 
 to the chief actor, and the Cato night was long one 
 of the traditions about which old players loved to 
 entertain all listeners. 
 
 While thus new glories were rising, old ones were 
 fading away, or dying out. Long-nosed Tom Durfey 
 was poor enough to be grateful for a benefit given 
 in his behalf, the proceeds of which furnished him 
 with a fresh supply of sack, and strengthened him to 
 new attempt at song. About the same time died the 
 last of the actors of the Cromwellian times, Will 
 Peer, one who was qualified by nature to play the 
 Apothecary in "Romeo and Juliet," and by intel- 
 ligence to deliver with well-feigned humility the 
 player's prologue to the play in " Hamlet," but whom 
 old age, good living, and success rendered too fat for 
 the first, and too jolly for the second. 
 
 In the season of 1713-14, Booth was associated 
 in the license which Wilks, Gibber, and Doggett held 
 at the queen's pleasure. Doggett withdrew on a pe- 
 cuniary arrangement, agreed upon after some litiga- 
 tion, and the theatre was in the hands of the other 
 three eminent actors. The old pieces of this season 
 were admirably cast ; of the new pieces which were 
 failures it is not necessary to speak, but of two which 
 have been played with success from that time down to 
 the last year, some notice is required. I allude to 
 Rowe's "Jane Shore," and Mrs. Centlivre's "Won-
 
 UNION, STRENGTH, PROSPERITY 307 
 
 der." The tragedy was written after the poet had 
 ceased to be under-secretary to the Duke of Queens- 
 berry, and after he had studied Spanish, in hopes 
 of a foreign appointment through Halifax, who, accord- 
 ing to the story, only congratulated him on be- 
 ing able to read Don Quixote in the original ! " Jane 
 Shore" was brought out February 2, 1714. Hast- 
 ings, Booth ; Dumont, Wilks ; Glo'ster, Gibber ; Jane 
 Shore, Mrs. Oldfield ; Alicia, Mrs. Porter. A greater 
 contrast to "Cato" could not have been devised 
 than this domestic tragedy, wherein all the unities 
 are violated, the language is familiar, and the chief 
 incidents the starving of a repentant wife, and the 
 generosity of an exceedingly forgiving husband. The 
 audience, which was stirred by the patriotism of 
 " Cato," was moved to delicious tears by the suffer- 
 ings and sorrow of Jane Shore, whose character Rowe 
 has elevated in order to secure for her the suffrages 
 of his hearers. The character was a triumph for 
 Mrs. Oldfield, who had been trained to a beautiful 
 reading of her part by Rowe himself, who was un- 
 equalled as a reader by any poet save Lee ; and " Jane 
 Shore " as a success ranked only next to " Cato." 
 The third, sixth, and tenth nights were for the 
 author's benefit. On the first two the boxes and pit 
 " were laid together," admission half a guinea ; the 
 third benefit was " at common prices." 
 
 Much expectation had been raised by this piece, 
 and it was realised to the utmost. It was otherwise 
 with the "Wonder," from which little was expected, 
 but much success ensued. The sinning wife and 
 moaning husband of the tragedy were the lively lady 
 and the quick-tempered lover of this comedy. The
 
 308 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Violanthe of Mrs. Oldfield and the Don Felix of 
 Wilks were talked of in every coffee-house. The 
 wits about the door, and the young poets in the back 
 room at the new house set up by Button, talked as 
 vivaciously about it as their rivals at Tom's, on the 
 opposite side of the way ; and every prophecy they 
 made of the success of the comedy in times to come, 
 does credit to them as soothsayers. 
 
 The death of Queen Anne, on the ist of August, 
 1714, cannot be said to have prematurely closed the 
 summer season of this year. However, the actors 
 mourned for a month, and then a portion of them 
 played joyously enough, for awhile, in Pinkethman's 
 booth at Southwark Fair. 
 
 At this period the stage lost a lady who was as 
 dear to it as Queen Anne, namely, Mrs. Bradshaw. 
 Her departure, however, was caused by marriage, not 
 by death ; and the gentleman who carried her off, in- 
 stead of being a rollicking gallant, or a worthless 
 peer, was a staid, solemn, worthy antiquary, Martin 
 Folkes, who rather surprised the town by wedding 
 young Mistress Bradshaw. The lady had been on 
 the stage about eighteen years ; she had trodden it 
 from early childhood, and always with unblemished 
 reputation. She had her reward in an excellent, sen- 
 sible, and wealthy husband, to whom her exemplary 
 and prudent conduct endeared her ; and the happi- 
 ness of this couple was well established. Probably, 
 when Martin was away on Friday evenings, at the 
 Young Devil Tavern, where the members of the so- 
 ciety of antiquaries met, upon "pain of forfeiture of 
 sixpence," Mrs. Folkes sat quietly at home, thinking 
 without sadness of the bygone times when she won
 
 UNION, STRENGTH, PROSPERITY 309 
 
 applause as the originator of the characters of Co- 
 rinna, in the " Conspirator," Sylvia, in the " Double 
 Gallant," and Arabella Zeal, in the " Fair Quaker." 
 In other respects, Mistress Bradshaw is one of the 
 happy, honest women who have no history. 
 
 If the age of Queen Anne was not quite so fully 
 the golden age of authors as it has been supposed to 
 be, it was still remarkable for a patronage of literature 
 hitherto unparallelled. Addison, Congreve, Gay, Am- 
 brose Philips, Rowe, were among the dramatic authors 
 who, with men of much humbler pretensions, held 
 public offices, were patronised by the great, or lived 
 at their ease. With the death of this queen, the 
 patent or license, held by Wilks, Gibber, Booth, and 
 Doggett, died also. In the new license, Steele, who, 
 since we last met with him at the play, had endured 
 variety of fortune, was made a partner. He had mar- 
 ried that second wife whom he treated so politely in 
 his little failures of allegiance. He had established 
 the Tatter, cooperated in the Spectator, had begun 
 and terminated the Guardian, and had started the 
 Englishman. He had served the Duke of Marl- 
 borough in and out of office, and had been elected 
 M. P. for Stockbridge, after nobly resigning his 
 commissionership of stamps, and his pension as "ser- 
 vant to the late Prince George of Denmark." He 
 had been expelled the House for writing what the 
 House called seditious pamphlets, and had then re- 
 turned to literature, and now to occupation as a man- 
 ager. From the new government, under the new 
 king, by whom he was soon after knighted, Steele 
 had influence enough to ultimately obtain a patent, 
 in the names of himself, Booth, Wilks and Gibber,
 
 3io THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 which protected them from some small tyrannies with 
 which they were occasionally visited by the officials 
 in the lord chamberlain's office. 
 
 The season of 1714-15 was not especially remark- 
 able, save for this, that the great actors who were 
 patentees frequently played small parts, in order to 
 give young actors a chance. It was not given, how- 
 ever, to every young actor ; for, on the 2Oth of April, 
 1715, when Rowe's " Lady Jane Grey " was produced 
 (Dudley, Booth ; Lady Jane, Mrs. Oldfield), the very 
 insignificant part of the Lieutenant of the Tower was 
 played by a new actor from Ireland, one James 
 Quin, who was destined to equal Booth in some parts, 
 and to be surpassed in some by an actor yet at school, 
 David Garrick. 
 
 Charles Johnson was, of course, ready with a com- 
 edy, stolen from various sources, " Country Lasses." 
 Gay, who had returned from Hanover with the third 
 Earl of Clarendon, whose secretary he had become, 
 after leaving the service of the Duchess of Monmouth, 
 produced his hilarious burlesque of old and modern 
 tragedies, the "Wr^it d'ye Call It?" The satire 
 of this piece was so fine, that deaf gentlemen who 
 saw the tragic action and could not hear the words, 
 and the new sovereign and court who heard the words 
 but could not understand their sense, were put into 
 great perplexity ; while the honest galleries, reached 
 by the solemn sounds, and taking manner for matter, 
 were affected to such tears as they could shed, at the 
 most farcical and high-sounding similes. It was only 
 after awhile that the joke was comprehended, and 
 that the "What d'ye Call It?" was seen to be a 
 capital burlesque of " Venice Preserved." The very
 
 UNION, STRENGTH, PROSPERITY 311 
 
 Templars, who of course comprehended it all, from 
 the first, and went to hiss the piece, for the honour 
 of Otway, could not do so, for laughing ; and this only 
 perplexed the more the matter-of-fact people, not so 
 apt to discover a joke. 
 
 Rowe's " Lady Jane " did not prove so attractive 
 as " Jane Shore." There were only innocence and 
 calamity wherewith to move the audience ; no guilt ; 
 no profound intrigue. But there is much force in 
 some of the scenes. The very variety of the latter, 
 indeed, was alleged against the author, as a defect, 
 by the many slaves of the unity of time and place. 
 It was objected to Rowe, that in his violation of the 
 unities he went beyond other offenders, not only 
 changing the scene with the acts, but varying it 
 within the acts. For this, however, he had good 
 authority in older and better dramatists. " To change 
 the scene, as is done by Rowe, in the middle of an 
 act, is to add more acts to the play ; since an act is so 
 much of the business as is transacted without inter- 
 ruption. Rowe, by this license, easily extricates him- 
 self from difficulties, as in ' Lady Jane Grey,' when 
 we have been terrified by all the dreadful pomp of 
 public execution, and are wondering how the heroine 
 or poet will proceed ; no sooner has Jane pronounced 
 some prophetic rhymes than pass and be gone 
 the scene closes, and Pembroke and Gardner are 
 turned out upon the stage." The critic wished to 
 stay and witness a "public execution," not satisfied 
 with the pathos of the speech uttered by Jane, and 
 which, for tenderness, sets the scene in fine contrast 
 with that of the quarrelling and reconciliation between 
 Pembroke and Guilford. Rowe's Jane Grey interests
 
 312 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 the heart more fully than Jane Shore or Calista ; but 
 the last two ladies have a touch of boldness about 
 them, in which the first, from her very innocence, is 
 wanting; and audiences are, therefore, more excited 
 by the loudly proclaimed wrongs of the women who 
 have gone astray than by the tender protests of the 
 victim who suffers for the crimes of others. 
 
 George Powell ended his seven and twentieth 
 season this year, at the close of which he died. For 
 the old actor gone, a young actress appeared, Mrs. 
 Horton, " one of the most beautiful women that ever 
 trod the stage." She had been a " stroller," ranting 
 tragedy in barns and country towns, and playing 
 Cupid in a booth at suburban fairs. The attention 
 of managers was directed toward her ; and Booth, 
 after seeing her act in Southwark, engaged her for 
 Drury Lane, where her presence was more agreeable 
 to the public than particularly pleasant to dear Mrs. 
 Oldfield.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 COMPETITION, AND WHAT CAME OF IT 
 
 " AUGUSTUS," as it was the fashion to call George 
 I., by performing a justifiable act, inflicted some 
 injury this year, by restoring the letters patent of 
 Charles II. to Christopher Rich, of which the latter 
 had been deprived, and under which his son, John, 
 opened the revived theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, 
 on the 1 8th December, 1714, with the "Recruiting 
 Officer." The enlarged stage was "superbly adorned 
 with looking-glasses on both sides ; " a circumstance 
 which, Quin said, "was an excellent trap to such 
 actresses who admired their own persons more than 
 they attended to the duties of their profession." Some 
 good actors left Drury for the Fields : Keen, the two 
 Bullocks, Pack, Spiller, Cory, Knapp, Mrs. Rogers, 
 and Mrs. Knight. Gibber rather contemptuously says 
 of such of the above as he names, that " they none 
 of them had more than a negative merit, being 
 able only to do us more harm by leaving us without 
 notice, than they could do us good by remaining with 
 us ; for, though the best of them could not support 
 a play, the worst of them, by their absence, could 
 maim it, as the loss of the least pin in a watch 
 may obstruct its motion." 
 
 313
 
 314 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 John Rich's company in the Fields either played 
 old pieces, or adaptations from them, or "from the 
 French ; " none of which deserved even a passing 
 word, except a roaring farce pieces which now 
 grew popular called " Love in a Sack," by Griffin, 
 whom I notice not as an indifferent author, but as 
 an excellent comedian, who first made his appear- 
 ance in a double capacity. Griffin may also be 
 noticed under a double qualification. He was a 
 gentleman and a glazier. His father was a Norfolk 
 rector, and had been chaplain to the Earl of Yar- 
 mouth, that gallant Sir Robert Paston, who was 
 in France and Flanders with James, Duke of York. 
 In the Paston Free School, at North Walsham, 
 Griffin learnt his "rudiments," having done which, 
 his sire apprenticed him to the useful but not digni- 
 fied calling of a glazier. The " 'prentice lad," dis- 
 gusted at the humiliation, ran away, took to strolling, 
 found his way, after favourable report, to Rich's 
 theatre, and there proved so good an actor, that the 
 Drury Lane management ultimately lured him away 
 to a stage where able competitors polished him into 
 still greater brilliancy. The season concluded on 
 the last day of July, 1715, with a "benefit for Tim 
 Buck, to release him out of prison." 
 
 In the following October, Drury commenced a 
 season which, save a few days of summer vacation, 
 extended to the close of August, 1716. During this 
 time, Shakespeare's best plays were frequently acted, 
 old comedies revived with success, and obscure farces 
 played and consigned to oblivion. The great attempt, 
 if not success, of the season, was the comedy of the 
 " Drummer, or the Haunted House," first played in
 
 COMPETITION, AND WHAT CAME. OF IT 315 
 
 March, 1716, and not known to be Addison's till 
 Steele published the fact, after the author's death. 
 Tonson, however, knew or suspected the truth, for 
 he gave ^50 for the copyright. Wilks, Gibber, 
 Mills, and Mrs. Oldfield could not secure a triumph 
 for the play which Steele thought was more dis- 
 graceful to the stage than to the comedy. There 
 is a novel mixture of sentiment, caricature, and farci- 
 cal incident in this piece. Warton describes it as 
 "a just picture of life and real manners; where the 
 poet never speaks in his own person, or totally drops 
 or forgets a character, for the sake of introducing 
 a brilliant simile or acute remark ; where no train is 
 laid for wit, no Jeremys or Bens are suffered to 
 appear." More natural, it was less brilliant than the 
 artificial comedies of Congreve ; but its failure prob- 
 ably vexed the author, as it certainly annoyed the 
 publisher. Tickell omitted it from his edition of 
 Addison's works, but Steele gave these reasons for 
 ascribing it to the latter ; they are a little confused, 
 but they probably contain the truth : "If I remem- 
 ber right, the fifth act was written in a week's 
 time. . . . He would walk about his room, and dic- 
 tate in language with as much freedom and ease 
 as any one could write it down. ... I have been 
 often thus employed by him. ... I will put all my 
 credit among men of wit, for the truth of my aver- 
 ment, when I presume to say, that no one but Mr. 
 Addison was in any other way the writer of the 
 Drummer.' ... At the same time, I will allow 
 that he has sent for me ... and told me that 'a 
 gentleman, then in the room, had written a play 
 that he was sure I would like; but it was to be a
 
 3i 6 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 secret ; and he knew I would take as much pains, 
 since he recommended it, as I would for him.'" 
 
 At Lincoln's Inn Fields, the season of 1715-16 
 had this of remarkable in it, that John Rich revived 
 the "Prophetess," as it enabled him to display his 
 ability in the introduction and management of ma- 
 chinery, and his success in raising the prices of 
 admission. Bullock's farce, the " Cobbler of Preston," 
 was begun on a Friday, finished the next day, and 
 played on the Tuesday following, in order to antici- 
 pate Charles Johnson's farce like this, derived from 
 the introduction to the " Taming of the Shrew " 
 at Drury Lane. Of the other plays, one, the " Fatal 
 Vision," was written by Aaron Hill, who, having lost 
 property and temper in a project how to extract 
 olive-oil from beech-nuts, endeavoured to inculcate 
 in his piece the wrongfulness of giving way to rash 
 designs and evil passions. This play he dedicated 
 to the two most merciless critics of the day, Dennis 
 and Gildon. Then of the "Perfidious Brother," it 
 is only to be stated that it was a bad play stolen 
 by young Theobald from Mestayer, a watchmaker, 
 who had lent him the manuscript. That an attorney 
 should have the reprehensible taste to steal a worth- 
 less play seemed a slur upon the lawyer's judgment. 
 Another new play, the " Northern Heiress," by Mrs. 
 Davys, a clergyman's widow, but now the lively Irish 
 mistress of a Cambridge coffee-house, reminds me of 
 the five-act farces of Reynolds, with its fops, fools, 
 half-pay officers, fast gentlemen, and flippant ladies. 
 There are ten people married at the end, a compli- 
 ment to matrimony at the hands of the widow ; but 
 there is a slip in poetical justice, for a lover who
 
 COMPETITION, AND WHAT CAME OF IT 317 
 
 deserts his mistress, when he finds, as Lord Peter. 
 borough did of Miss Moses, that her fortune was 
 not equal to his expectations, marries her, after 
 discovering that he was mistaken. 
 
 Herewith we come to the Drury Lane season of 
 1716-17. Booth, Wilks, and Gibber had a famous 
 company, in which Quin quietly made his way to 
 the head, and Mrs. Horton's beauty acted with good 
 effect on Mrs. Oldfield. In the way of novelty, Mrs. 
 Centlivre produced a tragedy, the " Cruel Gift," in 
 which nobody dies, and lovers are happily married. 
 The most notable affair, however, was the comedy, 
 "Three Hours After Marriage," in which Gay, Pope, 
 and Arbuthnot, three grave men, who pretended to 
 instruct and improve mankind, insulted modesty, 
 virtue, and common decency, in the grossest way, 
 by speech or innuendo. There is not so much filth 
 in any other comedy of this century, and the trio of 
 authors stand stigmatised for their attempt to bring 
 in the old corruption. In strange contrast we have 
 Mrs. Manley, a woman who began life with unmerited 
 misfortune, and carried it on with unmitigated prof- 
 ligacy, producing a highly moral, semi-religious drama, 
 " Lucius." 
 
 But while moral poets were polluting the stage, 
 and immoral women undertaking to purify it, a rev- 
 erend Archdeacon of Stowe, the historian, Lawrence 
 Echard, in conjunction with Lestrange, put on the 
 stage of Drury Lane a translation of the " Eunuchus " 
 of Terence. It did not survive the third night ; but 
 the audience might have remarked how much more 
 refinedly the Carthaginian of old could treat a deli- 
 cate subject than the Christian poets of a later era
 
 3i8 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 or, to speak correctly, than the later poets of a 
 Christian era. 
 
 In this season I find the first trace of a " fashion- 
 able night," and a later hour for beginning the play 
 than any of subsequent times. I quote from Genest : 
 " 1 8 June, 1717. By particular desire of several ladies 
 of quality. ' Fatal Marriage.' Biron, Booth ; Ville- 
 roy, Mills ; Isabella, Mrs. Porter ; Victoria, Mrs. 
 Younger. An exact computation being made of the 
 number which the pit and boxes will hold, they are 
 laid together, and no person can be admitted without 
 tickets. By desire the play is not to begin till nine 
 o'clock, by reason of the heat of the weather nor 
 the house to be opened till eight." What a change 
 from the time when Dryden's Lovely exclaimed : 
 
 " As punctual as three o'clock at the playhouse ! " 
 
 The corresponding season (1716-17) at Lincoln's 
 Inn requires but brief notice. Rich, who had failed 
 in attempting Essex, played, as Mr. Lun, Harlequin 
 in the " Cheats, or the Tavern Bilkers," a ballet-pan- 
 tomime the forerunner of the line of pantomime, 
 which, not withstanding our presumed advance in 
 civilisation, still has its admirers. In novelty, Dick 
 Leveredge, the singer, produced the burlesque of 
 "Pyramus and Thisbe," those parts being played 
 by himself and Pack with irresistible comic effect, 
 especially when caricaturing the style of the Italian 
 opera, where your hero died in very good time and 
 tune. English opera was not altogether neglected 
 in the Fields, but little was accomplished in the way 
 of upholding the drama. Bullock produced a comedy, 
 which he was accused of stealing from a manuscript
 
 COMPETITION, AND WHAT CAME OF IT 319 
 
 by Savage, " Woman's a Riddle." It was a long, 
 coarse farce, in which the most decent incident is the 
 hanging of Sir Amorous Vainwit from a balcony as 
 he is trying to escape in woman's clothes, which are 
 caught by a hook, and beneath which a footman stands 
 with a flambeau. We learn, too, from this comedy, 
 that young ladies carried snuff-boxes in those days. 
 
 Taverner, the proctor, also produced a comedy 
 quite as extravagant and not a whit less immoral 
 than Bullock's, the "Artful Husband." It had, 
 however, great temporary success, quite enough to 
 turn the author's head, and by his acts to show 
 that there was nothing in it. 
 
 "The Artful Husband," however, brought into 
 notice a young actor who had but a small part to 
 play, Stockwell. His name was Spiller. The Duke 
 of Argyle thought and spoke well of him before this. 
 On the night in question Spiller, who dressed his 
 characters like an artist, went through his first scenes 
 exquisitely and without being recognised by his pa- 
 tron, who came behind the scenes, and had recom- 
 mended him warmly to the notice of Rich. Genest 
 says he hopes this story is true. I am sure it is not 
 improbable, and for this reason : I once saw Lafont 
 acting the son in " Pere et Fils." Opposite to the 
 side on which he made his exit an aged actor who 
 represented the father passed me. I was delighted 
 with the truth and beauty of his acting, and at the 
 end of the scene asked who he was. To my aston- 
 ishment I heard that Lafont, whom I had well 
 known as an actor for more than twenty years, was 
 playing both parts. This identifying power was 
 Spiller's distinguishing merit. Riccoboni saw the
 
 320 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 young actor play an old man with a perfectness not 
 to be expected but from players of the longest expe- 
 rience. " How great was my surprise," says Ricco- 
 boni, "when I learned that he was a young man 
 about the age of twenty-six. I could not believe it ; 
 but owned that it might be possible had he only 
 used a broken and a trembling voice, and had only an 
 extreme weakness possessed his body, because I con- 
 ceived that a young actor might, by the help of art, 
 imitate that debility of nature to such a pitch of 
 excellence ; but the wrinkles of his face, his sunk 
 eyes, and his loose, yellow cheeks, the most certain 
 marks of age, were incontestable proofs against what 
 they said to me. Notwithstanding all this, I was 
 forced to submit the truth, because I was credibly 
 informed that the actor, to fit himself for the part 
 of this old man, spent an hour in dressing himself, 
 and disguised his face so nicely, and painted so arti- 
 ficially a part of his eyebrows and eyelids, that at the 
 distance of six paces it was impossible not to be 
 deceived." 
 
 In the next season, at Drury (1717-18), the only 
 remarkable piece produced was Gibber's adaptation 
 of " Tartuffe," under the name of the "Nonjuror." 
 In the lustre of the " Nonjuror " paled and died out 
 the first play by Savage, " Love in a Veil." Not 
 twenty years had elapsed since this luckless and 
 heartless young vagabond was born in Fox Court, 
 Gray's Inn's Lane, his unknown mother, but not 
 that light lady, the Countess Macclesfield, wearing 
 a mask. Savage had passed from a shoemaker's 
 shop to the streets, had written a poem on the Ban- 
 gorian Controversy, had adapted a play translated
 
 COMPETITION, AND WHAT CAME OF IT 321 
 
 from the Spanish by the wife of Mr. Baron Price, 
 and which Bullock readapted and produced at Drury 
 Lane before Savage could get his own accepted. 
 "Love in a Veil" seems to have been founded on 
 an incident in the Spanish comedy ; but however 
 this may be, it failed to obtain the public approval. 
 The author, however, did not altogether fail ; gener- 
 ous Wilks patronised the boy, and Steele, befriending 
 a lad of parts, designed to give him ;i,ooo, which 
 he had not got, with the hand of a natural daughter, 
 whom the young and wayward poet did not get. The 
 "Nonjuror" alone survives as a memorial of the 
 Drury season of 1717-18. 
 
 We owe the piece to fear and hatred of the Pope 
 and the Pretender. It addressed itself to so wide a 
 public, that Lintot gave the liberal sum of a hundred 
 guineas for the copyright ; and it was so acceptable 
 to the king, that he gave a dedication fee of twice 
 that number of guineas to the author, who addressed 
 him as "dread Sir," and spoke of himself as "the 
 lowest of your subjects from the theatre." Gibber 
 adds, " Your comedians, Sir, are an unhappy society, 
 whom some severe heads think wholly useless, and 
 others, dangerous to the young and innocent. This 
 comedy is, therefore, an attempt to remove that 
 prejudice, and to show what honest and laudable 
 uses may be made of the theatre when its perform- 
 ances keep close to the true purposes of its institu- 
 tion." 
 
 Gibber goes on to remark, that perhaps the idly 
 and seditiously inclined may cease to disturb their 
 brains about embarrassing the government if " proper 
 amusements " be provided for them. For such, his.
 
 322 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 play is rather a chastisement than an amusement, 
 and he thinks that would have been all the better 
 taken had it not been administered by a comedian ! 
 The Nonjurors, whose allegiance was paid to the 
 Pretender, were perhaps not worthy of a more 
 exalted scourger ; but he fears that truth and loy- 
 alty demanded a nobler champion. He flatteringly 
 alludes to the small number of malcontents. His 
 piece had either crushed them, or their forces were 
 not so great as supposed, " there being no assembly 
 where people are so free and apt to speak their 
 minds as in a crowded theatre, of which," says the 
 courtly fellow, "your Majesty may have lately seen 
 an instance in the insuppressible acclamations that 
 were given on your appearing to honour this play 
 with your royal presence." 
 
 On the night of representation Rowe, in a pro- 
 logue, he was now poet laureate and land sur- 
 veyor of the customs in the port of London, 
 deprecated the piece being considered unjustifiably 
 discourteous. 
 
 " Think not our colours may too strongly paint 
 The stiff nonjuring separation saint. 
 Good breeding ne'er commands us to be civil 
 To those who give the nation to the devil ! " 
 
 The play was admirably acted by Booth, Colonel 
 Woodvil ; Mills, Sir John ; Wilks, Sir Heartley ; 
 Gibber, Doctor Wolf (the Cantwell of the modern 
 arrangement) ; and Walker (soon to be famous as 
 Captain Macheath), Charles. Mrs. Porter played 
 Lady Woodvil, and Mrs. Oldfield turned the heads 
 and touched the hearts of all lively and susceptible
 
 COMPETITION, AND WHAT CAME OF IT 323 
 
 folks by her exquisite coquetry in Maria. The play 
 was not a servile imitation of, but an excellent adap- 
 tation to modern circumstances of the "Tartuffe." 
 Thoroughly English, it abounds with the humour 
 and manner of Gibber, and, despite some offences 
 against taste, it was at this time the purest comedy 
 on the stage. There was farce enough for- the gal- 
 lery, maxim and repartee, suggestions and didactic 
 phrases for the rest of the house. The success sur- 
 passed even expectation. It raised against Gibber a 
 phalanx of implacable foes, foes who howled at 
 everything of which he was afterward the author; 
 but it gained for him his advancement to the poet 
 laureateship, and an estimation which caused some 
 people to place him, for usefulness to the cause of 
 true religion, on an equality with the author of "The 
 Whole Duty of Man ! " Gibber foresaw the tempest, 
 and, probably, also the prosperous gales which were 
 to follow, to which there is some allusion in the epi- 
 logue spoken by Mrs. Oldfield, which, of course, had 
 a fling against marriage. 
 
 " Was't not enough that critics might pursue him? 
 But must he rouse a party to undo him ? 
 These blows, I told him, on his plays would fall : 
 But, he unmov'd, cried 's blood ! we'll stand it all ! " 
 
 In the theatre itself the opposition to the piece 
 was confined, Gibber says, to " a few smiles of silent 
 contempt." As the satire was chiefly employed 
 on the enemies of the government, they were not 
 so hardy as to own themselves such, by any higher 
 disapprobation or resentment. They made up for 
 this constrained silence, as above noted, and Mists
 
 Journal, for fifteen years, lost no opportunity of maul- 
 ing the detested offender. With the editor of that 
 paper, says Gibber, "though I could never persuade 
 my wit to have an open account with him (for, as he 
 had no effects of his own, I did not think myself 
 obliged to answer his bills), notwithstanding, I will 
 be so charitable to his real manes, and to the ashes 
 of his paper, as to mention one particular civility he 
 paid to my memory after he thought he had ingen- 
 iously killed me. Soon after the ' Nonjuror ' had 
 received the favour of the town, I read in one of his 
 journals the following short paragraph : ' Yesterday 
 died Mr. Colley Gibber, late comedian of the Theatre 
 Royal, notorious for writing the " Nonjuror." ' The 
 compliment in the latter part, I confess," adds 
 Gibber, " I did not dislike, because it came from so 
 impartial a judge." 
 
 The stage lost this year an excellent actor, Irish 
 Bowen, who, at the age of fifty-two, was slain in 
 duel by young Quin. Hitherto the sword had dealt 
 lightly with actors. In 1692, indeed, Sandford nearly 
 killed Powell, on the stage. On the I3th of October 
 they were acting together, in "Oedipus, King of 
 Thebes," when the former, to whom a real dagger 
 had been delivered by the property man, instead 
 of a weapon the blade of which run up, when the 
 point was pressed, into the handle, gave poor Powell 
 a stab three inches deep; the wound was, at first, 
 thought to be mortal ; but Powell recovered. Five 
 years later, in July, 1697, I find brief mention in the 
 papers of a duel between an actor and an officer. 
 The initials only of the principals are given : " Mr. 
 H., an actor, of Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, fought
 
 COMPETITION, AND WHAT CAME OF IT 325 
 
 Mr. D., an officer, at Barnes Elms." Whether the 
 former was young Hodgson or young Harris is not 
 now to be determined, nor the grounds of the quarrel. 
 The issue of it was that the player dangerously 
 wounded the soldier ; and it is added that both 
 parties exhibited brilliant courage. 
 
 Cowen was the original representative of Sir Joshua 
 Wittol ( Old Bachelor"), Jeremy ("Love for Love "), 
 and Foigard (" Beaux' Stratagem "). 
 
 Quin passed over to Lincoln's Inn Fields in this 
 season of 1717-18, where he played Hotspur, Tamer- 
 lane, Morat (" Aurungzebe "), Mark Antony, and 
 created the part of Scipio, in the " Scipio Africanus," 
 written by young Beckingham, the pride of Merchant 
 Tailors' School. Beckingham must also have been 
 the pride of Fleet Street, and especially of the craft 
 of linen-drapers, of which his father was a worthy 
 and well-to-do member. The piece was played on 
 the 1 8th of February, 1718. The author was then 
 but nineteen years of age, and was full of bright 
 promise. A tragedy by one so young, excited the 
 public, and most especially the juvenile public, at 
 Merchant Tailors', where Doctor Smith was head- 
 master. The doctor and submasters held the stage 
 in abhorrence till now, when a brilliant alumnus was 
 likely to shed lustre on the corporation of " Merchant 
 Tailors and Linen Armorers." Now they proclaimed 
 high jubilee, gave the lads a half-holiday on the 
 author's night, and joyfully saw the whole school 
 swarming to the pit of Lincoln's Inn, to uphold the 
 tragedy by this honoured condiscipulus. The mas- 
 ters, in this, acted against their own former precept 
 and example ; but they made amends by a religious
 
 326 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 zeal, and by expelling all the Jewish pupils from the 
 school ! Israel was the scapegoat, and the Christian 
 sense of propriety was gratified. 
 
 But Quin's Scipio established a taste for theatricals 
 at Merchant Tailors', where classical plays were 
 acted, for some years, as at Westminster. Becking- 
 ham's tragedy exhibits a romantic story, or stories, 
 in a classical costume. There is severity enough to 
 gratify rigid tastes, with a little of overwarmth of 
 action on the part of one of three lovers, which shows 
 that the young poet was not unread in the older 
 masters. 
 
 But there were worse and better plays than 
 " Scipio " brought out on the same stage this sea- 
 son. Taverner failed in a pendant to his " Artful 
 Husband," the "Artful Wife." Bullock did little 
 for the credit of the stage by his farce of the " Per- 
 jurer," and Sir Thomas Moore justly criticised his 
 own tragedy of " Mangore, King of the Timbusians," 
 when he called it a " trifle." It is a very noisy trifle, 
 concerned with love, battle, murder, and worse, be- 
 tween the Spaniards and South American Indians. 
 Rich thought its bustle might carry its absurdities 
 successfully through, and Sir Thomas stimulated the 
 actors, when at rehearsal, by inviting them to supper, 
 at which Leigh, the two Bullocks, Williams, Ogden, 
 Knapp, and Giffard, Mistresses Knight, Bullock, and 
 Kent, made a joyous party, as hilarious as the audi- 
 ence was, whose laughter alone prevented them from 
 hissing down the nonsense of an obscure man who 
 was knighted for some forgotten service certainly 
 not for any rendered to the Muses. 
 
 The piece of this season which had stuff in it to
 
 COMPETITION, AND WHAT CAME OF IT 327 
 
 cause it to live to our own times, was Mrs. Centlivre's 
 "Bold Stroke for a Wife." Sprightly Mrs. Cent- 
 livre was as fervent a Whig as Gibber, and had 
 written verses enough in praise of Brunswick to 
 entitle her to be poetess laureate, had the Princess 
 Caroline had a voice in the matter, when Rowe died 
 this very year, and Newcastle recommended tipsy 
 Eusden for the office of " birthday fibber." The 
 " Bold Stroke," laughed at and denounced by Wilks, 
 and taken reluctantly in hand by the actors, is a fair 
 specimen of that lighter comedy which borders upon 
 farce, but in which that fun is genuine, and the 
 incidents not so improbable but that they may be 
 accepted, or, by the rapidity of their succession, 
 laughed at and forgotten. 
 
 This season, withal, was not successful. It broke 
 the heart of Keen, actor and sharer. In the former 
 capacity, though Savage thought his life worth nar- 
 rating, he won few laurels, but his wreath was not 
 entirely leafless. He was loved, too, by his brethren 
 of both houses, whose subscriptions defrayed the 
 expenses of a funeral, at which upward of two hun- 
 dred persons walked, in deep mourning. 
 
 At this time, Drury, with its old, strong company, 
 was patronised by court and town. Plays acted at 
 Hampton Court, before the king, were repeated 
 in the public theatre. Of the former I shall speak 
 in a future page. Two new comedies proved, indeed, 
 inferior to Mrs. Centlivre's "Bold Stroke," at the 
 other house. Charles Johnson's " Masquerade," bor- 
 rowed a little from Shirley, and more from Moliere, 
 furnished, in Ombre and Lady Frances Ombre, some 
 ideas, probably, to Gibber, when he placed a similar
 
 328 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 pair on the stage, in Lord and Lady Townley. A 
 worse piece was more successful, the rambling 
 comedy, " Chit Chat," by a Mr. Thomas Killigrew, a 
 gentleman who, like his namesake, had a place at 
 court, but not his namesake's wit. The courtiers, 
 with the Duke of Argyle at their head, carried the 
 piece through eleven representations, and enriched 
 the treasury by ^1,000! 
 
 The great effort of the season was made in bring- 
 ing out "Busiris," a tragedy, by the Reverend Doc- 
 tor Young, author of "Night Thoughts." It was 
 played on March 7, 1719, by Booth, Elrington, 
 WUks, Mills, Walker, and Thurmond, Mrs. Oldfield, 
 and Mrs. Thurmond. 
 
 " Busiris " was Young's earliest tragedy. It is 
 written in a stilted and inflated style, and bears all 
 the marks of a juvenile production. The plot of the 
 piece is void of all ingenuity ; but there is little that 
 is borrowed in it, save the haughty message sent by 
 Busiris to the Persian ambassador, which is the 
 same as that returned by the Ethiopian prince to 
 Cambyses, in the third book of Herodotus. Of the 
 phrasing, and indeed of the incidents of this tragedy, 
 Fielding made excellent fun, in his mock tragedy 
 of "Tom Thumb." The sovereigns and courtiers 
 of Egypt gave little trouble to be converted into 
 Arthur and Dollabella, Noodle, Doodle, the great 
 little prince, and Huncamunca. The travesty is 
 rich and facile ; not least so in that passage mimick- 
 ing the various addresses to the sun, who is bid to rise 
 no more but hide his face and put the world in mourn- 
 ing. On these, Fielding remarks that "the author 
 of Busiris ' is extremely anxious to prevent the sun's
 
 COMPETITION, AND WHAT CAME OF IT 329 
 
 blushing at any indecent object ; and, therefore, on 
 all such occasions, he addresses himself to the sun, 
 and desires him to keep out of the way." It was 
 dedicated to the Duke of Newcastle, the patron of 
 Eusden, the laureate, " because the late instances he 
 had received of his Grace's undeserved and uncom- 
 mon favour, in an affair of some consequence, foreign 
 to the theatre, had taken from him the privilege of 
 choosing a patron." If this favour consisted in re- 
 warding Young for writing for the court, the favour 
 may have been "undeserved," but it was by no 
 means "uncommon." 
 
 The concluding incident of this play the double 
 suicide of Memmon (Wilks) and Mandane (Mrs. Old- 
 field), found such favour in the author's own estima- 
 tion, that he repeated it in his next two tragedies, in 
 each of which a couple of lovers make away with 
 themselves. This tripled circumstance reminds a 
 critic of the remark of Dryden : " The dagger and 
 the bowl are always at hand to butcher a hero, when 
 a poet wants the brains to save him." 
 
 Doctor Young was at this time thirty-eight years 
 of age, but was not yet "famous." Born when 
 Charles II. was king and Dryden laureate, the Hamp- 
 shire godson of the Princess Anne was as yet only 
 known as having been the friend of the Duke of 
 Wharton, and of Tickell ; as having first come be- 
 fore the public in 1713, with a poem to Granville, in 
 which there is good dramatic criticism ; and of having 
 since written poems of promise rather than of merit, 
 the latest of which was a paraphrase on part of the 
 book of Job, which, curiously enough, abounds with 
 phrases which show the author's growing intercourse
 
 330 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 with the playhouse and theatrical people. " Busiris " 
 was written in the year that "Cato" was played, but 
 its performance was delayed till this year, and its 
 dramatic death occurred long before " Cato " departed 
 from the stage to be read, at least, as long as an 
 admirer of Addison survives.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF JAMES QUIN, AND DECLINE OF 
 BARTON BOOTH 
 
 QUIN made great advances in the public favour in 
 the season of 1718-19, at Lincoln's Inn, where, how- 
 ever, as yet, he only shared the leading business in 
 tragedy and comedy with Ryan, and the less distin- 
 guished Evans. Southwark Fair, a fashionable resort, 
 contributed to the company a new actor, Bohemia or 
 Boheme, with great comic power ; and Susan Mount- 
 fort replaced for a few weeks Mrs. Rogers, who had 
 held for a time the tragic parts once acted by Mrs. 
 Barry and Bracegirdle, and who died about this time. 
 Of Susan Mountfort's touching end I will speak in a 
 future page. Mrs. Rogers had been on the stage 
 since 1692, and numbered among her original parts: 
 Imoinda, Oriana, Melinda, and Isabinda, in "Oro- 
 nooko," "Inconstant," "Recruiting Officer," and 
 " Busy Body." 
 
 During this season a French company acted for 
 some time in the Fields, where the " Tartuffe " was 
 also played against the " Nonjuror." The only nov- 
 elty worthy of notice was the " Sir Walter Raleigh " 
 of poor Doctor Sevvell, in which Quin played the hero 
 with indifferent success. The author was more re- 
 markable than his piece. He was of good family,
 
 332 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 and a pupil of Boerhaave ; but, unsuccessful as a 
 practitioner in London, he, curiously enough, gained 
 fortune and reputation in the smaller sphere of Hamp- 
 stead, until, as a singular biographical notice informs 
 us, "three other physicians settled at the same place, 
 after which his gains became very inconsiderable." 
 He became a poor poet instead of a rich physician ; 
 " kept no house, but was a boarder ; was much es- 
 teemed, and so frequently invited to the tables of 
 gentlemen in the neighbourhood, that he had seldom 
 occasion to dine at home." Seven years after Quin 
 failed to lift him into dramatic notoriety, this Tory 
 opponent of the Whig Bishop of Salisbury, and one 
 of the minor contributors (it is said) to the Spectator 
 and Tatler, though he is not included in Bissett's lives 
 of the writers in the first-named periodical, died, " and 
 was supposed," says the anonymous biographer already 
 quoted, " at that time to be in very indigent circum- 
 stances, as he was interred in the meanest manner, his 
 coffin being little better than those allotted by the 
 parish to their poor who are buried from the work- 
 houses, neither did a single friend or relation attend 
 him to the grave. No memorial was placed over his 
 remains ; but they lie just under a holly-tree, which 
 formed part of a hedgerow, that was once the bound- 
 ary of the churchyard." Such was the end of the 
 poet through whom Lincoln's Inn Fields hoped, in 
 1719, to recover its ancient prosperity. 
 
 Eventful incidents marked the Drury Lane season 
 of 1719-20. It commenced in the middle of Sep- 
 tember, between which time, and the last week of the 
 following January, things went on prosperously as 
 between players and public, but not so as between
 
 PROGRESS OF QUIN, AND DECLINE OF BOOTH 333 
 
 patentees and the government. Within the period 
 mentioned Miss Santlow had made Booth happy, a 
 union which helped to make Susan Mountfort mad, 
 and Dennis's " Invader of His Country," and South- 
 erne's " Spartan Dame," were produced. The former 
 was the second of three adaptations from Shake- 
 speare's " Coriolanus." Forty years before, in 1682, 
 Nahum Tate fancied there was something in the times 
 like that depicted in the days of Coriolanus. To make 
 the parallel more striking, he pulled Shakespeare's play 
 to pieces, and out of the fragments built up his own 
 " Ingratitude of a Commonwealth." Nahum altered 
 all for the worse; and he wrote a new fifth act, 
 which was still worse than the mere verbal or semi- 
 alterations. The impudence of the destroyer was 
 illustrated by his cool assurance, in the prologue, 
 that 
 
 " He only ventures to make gold from ore, 
 And turn to money what lay dead before." 
 
 Tate was now followed by Dennis, who altered 
 " Coriolanus " for political reasons, brought it out at 
 Drury Lane, in the cause of his country and sovereign, 
 and perhaps thought to frighten the Pretender by it. 
 The failure was complete ; although Booth played the 
 principal male character, and Mrs. Porter, Volumnia. 
 
 Southerne's " Spartan Dame " had been interdicted 
 in the reign of William and Mary, as it was supposed 
 that the part of Celonis (Mrs. Oldfield), wavering be- 
 tween her duty to her father, Leonidas, and that 
 owing to her husband, Cleombrotus (Booth), would 
 have painfully reminded some, and joyfully reminded 
 other, of the spectators, of the position of Mary, be-
 
 334 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 tween her royal sire and her princely consort. But it 
 would have been as reasonable to prohibit " Othello " 
 or "King Lear," because of the presence in them of 
 individuals so related. Southerne's play has no local 
 colour about it, but abounds in anachronisms and in- 
 congruities, and it survived but during a brief popu- 
 larity. The author was now sixty years of age, 
 Dennis seven years his senior. The older and un- 
 luckier, and less courteous poet, gained nothing by 
 his play to compensate for the annuity he had pur- 
 chased, but the term of which he had outlived. 
 Southerne gained ^500 by his "author's nights" 
 alone ; for patronage and presence on which occa- 
 sions, the plausible poet personally solicited his 
 friends. For the copyright he received an additional 
 
 ;l20. 
 
 About six weeks after Southerne's play was pro- 
 duced, that is, after the performance of the " Maid's 
 Tragedy," January 23, 1720, an order from the Duke 
 of Newcastle, lord chamberlain, suddenly closed the 
 theatre ! The alleged cause was " information of mis- 
 behaviour on the part of the players." The real cause 
 lay in Sir Richard Steele, the principal man who held 
 the patent ! 
 
 Since we last parted with the knight, he had been 
 ungenerously trying, in pamphlets, to hunt to the 
 scaffold the last Tory ministers of Queen Anne ; he 
 had lost his second wife; he had been projecting a 
 union of church and kirk ; he had invented a means 
 of keeping fish alive while being transported across 
 sea; he had been living extravagantly; but he had 
 also offended his patron, the Duke of Newcastle, and 
 therewith, the king, whose servant the duke was,
 
 PROGRESS OF QUIN, AND DECLINE OF BOOTH 335 
 
 and the government, of which the duke was a mem- 
 ber. Steele, in fact, had vehemently and successfully 
 opposed, by speech and pamphlet, Lord Sunderland's 
 Peerage Bill, which proposed to establish twenty-five 
 hereditary peers of Scotland to sit in the English 
 House of Lords, in place of the usual election of 
 sixteen ; and to create six new English peerages, with 
 the understanding that the Crown would never, in 
 future, make a new peer except on the extinction of 
 an old family. Steele denounced, in the "Plebeian," 
 the aristocratical tendency of the bill, and to such 
 purpose, that the theatre he governed was closed, 
 and his name struck out of the license ! 
 
 Steele appealed to the public, in a pamphlet, the 
 " Theatre ; " and showed, by counsel's opinion, how he 
 had been wronged ; he estimated his loss at nearly 
 10,000, and finally sank into distress; with min- 
 gled bitterness and wit. His old ducal patron had 
 loudly proclaimed he would ruin him. " This," said 
 Steele, " from a man in his circumstances, to one in 
 mine, is as great as the humour of Malagina, in the 
 comedy, who valued himself for his activity in 
 ' tripping up cripples.' ' 
 
 Dennis entered the lists against Sir Richard ; but 
 the worst the censor could say against the knight 
 was, that he had a dark complexion, and wore a 
 black peruke. Dennis also attacked actors gener- 
 ally, as rogues and vagabonds in the eye of the law, 
 and liable to be whipped at the king's porter's lodge. 
 Such was the testimony of this coarse cockney, the 
 son of a saddler, and a fellow who, for his ill-doings, 
 had been expelled from Cambridge University. 
 
 Booth, Gibber, and Wilks were permitted to re-
 
 336 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 open Drury under a license, after an interval of a 
 few days, and the season thus recommencing on the 
 28th of January, with the "Careless Husband," 
 Gibber playing Lord Foppington, ran on to August 
 23d, when the house closed with "Bartholomew 
 Fair!" The only novelty was Hughes's "Siege of 
 Damascus," with false quantities in his classical 
 names, and much heaviness of treatment of an apt 
 story. It was Hughes's first play, and he died un- 
 conscious of its success. He was then but forty- 
 three years of age. The old schoolfellow of Isaac 
 Watts had begun his career by complimenting King 
 William and eulogising Queen Anne. He had pub- 
 lished clever translations, composed very gentleman- 
 like music, contributed to the Spectator, and obtained 
 a place among the wits. He wrote, in 1712, the words 
 of the opera of " Calypso and Telemachus," to prove 
 how gracefully the English language might be wedded 
 to music. Two lord chancellors were among his 
 patrons, Cowper and Macclesfield, and that he held 
 the secretaryship to the commissioners of the peace 
 was a pleasant consequence thereof. His " Siege 
 of Damascus " has for moral, that it is wrong to 
 extend religious faith by means of the sword. The 
 angry lover who left the city he had saved, to assault 
 it with the Arabians, from whom he had saved it, 
 and to meet the lady of his love full of abhorrence 
 for the traitor, might have produced some emotion ; 
 but loving, loved, living, and dying, they all talk, 
 seldom act, and never touch. Nevertheless, Booth, 
 Wilks, Mills, and Mrs. Porter had attentive listeners, 
 if not ecstatic auditors, during a run of ten nights. 
 The long tirades and the ponderous similes gratified
 
 PROGRESS OF QUIN, AND DECLINE OF BOOTH 337 
 
 the same audiences who took delight in Norris's 
 Barnaby Brittle, Shepherd's Sir Tunbelly Clumsey 
 and Mrs. Booth's Helena, in the "Rover." Never- 
 theless, Hughes acquired no fame. When Swift 
 received a copy of his works, he wrote to Pope : 
 " I never heard of the man in my life, yet I find 
 your name as a subscriber. He is too grave a poet 
 for me ; and, I think, among the mediocrists in prose 
 as well as in verse." Pope sanctioned the judgment ; 
 adding, that what Hughes wanted in genius, he made 
 up as an honest man. Hitherto, the great tragedy 
 of this century was " Cato." 
 
 At Lincoln's Inn, Quin played the king to Ryan's 
 Hamlet, and created Henri Quatre in young Beck- 
 ingham's second, last, and unsuccessful essay, " Henri 
 IV. of France." What was the course of the Mer- 
 chant Tailors' pupil, and son of the Fleet Street 
 linen-draper, after this, I am unable to say, further 
 than that he died in obscurity some ten years later. 
 A comedy, by " Handsome Leigh," a moderately 
 fair actor, called " Kensington Gardens, or the Pre- 
 tenders," showed some power of drawing character, 
 especially an effeminate footman, Bardash, played by 
 Bullock, but it did nothing for a theatre which was 
 now partly relying on subscriptions in aid. At the 
 head of the subscribers was the last Baron Brooke, 
 whose more famous son, the first Earl of Warwick, 
 of the Fulk Greville line, used to subscribe his 
 political vote so singularly first for ministers, then 
 for the opposition, and thirdly, not at all, in unde- 
 viating regularity. 
 
 This piece failing, came Theobald's adaptation of 
 Shakespeare's " Richard II.," very much for the worse,
 
 338 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 but so far to the profit of the adapter, that the Earl 
 of Orrery conferred on him an unusually liberal gift 
 for the dedication, namely, a hundred-pound note, 
 enclosed in a box of Egyptian pebble, which was 
 worth a score of pounds more. The original author 
 was less munificently remunerated, except in abiding 
 glory. 
 
 Another attempt served the house as poorly, 
 namely, the reappearance of a Mrs. Vandervelt, not 
 because she was a clever, but that she was a very 
 aged, actress, eighty-five years old, who had not 
 played since King Charles's time, but who had spirits 
 enough to act the Widow Rich in the " Half-Pay 
 Officer," a vamped-up farce, by Molloy, the political 
 writer, and strength enough to dance a sprightly jig 
 after it. As the hostess of a tavern in Tottenham 
 Court Road, Peg Fryer, as the old dame was called 
 off the stage, kept a merry and prosperous house. 
 
 Another adaptation was Griffin's comedy, "Whig 
 and Tory," which had nothing political in it but the 
 name; and by which that excellent low comedian, 
 who ought to have been in the Church, and who 
 would not be a glazier, did not add to his fame. 
 
 The " Imperial Captives " was a more ambitious 
 venture, by a new author, Mottley. It was a tragedy, 
 in which Quin played Genseric, King of the Vandals, 
 and in which there is much love and a little murder, 
 in the old thundering style, and all at cross-purposes. 
 Distress made a poet of Mottley. His father was a 
 Jacobite colonel, who followed James to France ; his 
 mother, a thorough bred Whig, who stayed under 
 William in England. Occasionally, they settled their 
 political differences, and met. Mottley was one of
 
 PROGRESS OF QU1N, AND DECLINE OF BOOTH 339 
 
 those men who depend on patrons. He had lost a 
 post in the excise office, and had not gained either 
 of two which had been promised him, one in the 
 wine license office, by Lord Halifax, and one in 
 the exchequer, to which he had been appointed, but 
 from which he was immediately ousted by Sir Robert 
 Walpole. An estate, in which he had a reversionary 
 interest, was sold by his widowed and extravagant 
 mother to pay her debts ; and thus stripped of post 
 and prospects, Mottley made an essay as dramatic 
 author, a career in which he was not destined to be 
 distinguished, although Queen Caroline patronised 
 him during a part of it so she did Stephen Duck ! 
 " Cato " was not superseded ; but Young was putting 
 the finishing stroke to his " Revenge." 
 
 That tragedy, which has been acted more fre- 
 quently and more recently than " Cato," was first 
 played in the Drury Lane season of 1720-21. On 
 the 1 8th of April, of the latter year, Zanga was 
 played by Mills, while Booth took Alonzo, and Wilks, 
 Carlos. The secondary parts were thus played by 
 the better actors. Mrs. Porter played Leonora ; 
 Mrs. Horton, Isabella. This was a fine cast, and the 
 piece was fairly successful. A story in the Guardian, 
 and two plays, by Marlowe and Aphra Behn, are said 
 to have furnished Young with his materials, in han- 
 dling which, one of his biographers has described him 
 as " superior even to Shakespeare ! " The action 
 does not flag, the situations are dramatic, the interest 
 is well sustained, and the language is expressive and 
 abounding in poetical beauty. The story of love, 
 jealousy, and murder is, however, a little marred by 
 the puling lines of the black lago Zanga at the
 
 340 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 close. Young obtained but $Q for the copyright 
 of this piece. 
 
 Young's " Revenge," if built upon other plays, has 
 served the turn of later authors. In Lord John 
 Russell's "Don Carlos," the reason given for the 
 grovelling Cordoba's hatred of the Spanish prince, 
 reminds the reader of that of Zanga for Alonzo ; not 
 less in the fact itself, the blow believed to be for- 
 gotten, but in the expression. Any one, moreover, 
 who remembers the avowal which Artabanus makes 
 of his guilt in the " Artaxerxes " of Metastasio, will 
 be inclined to think that the Italian had in his mind 
 the similar speech of the Moor to his master. 
 
 Gibber's comedy, the " Refusal," skilfully built up 
 from the " Femmes Savantes " of Moliere and the 
 South Sea mania, ran, like the more famous tragedy, 
 but six nights, a riot attending each representation, 
 and finally ending in driving a good play by the au- 
 thor of the " Nonjuror " from the stage. The other 
 incidents of this season are confined to the appear- 
 ance of Gibber's son, Theophilus, who made his 
 first essay in the Duke of Clarence in the second 
 part of " Henry IV.," as arranged by Betterton. It 
 was a modest attempt on the part of him whose 
 Pistol was to serve, down to our day, as a tradition 
 to be followed. As this vagabond Theophilus ap- 
 peared, there, on the other hand, departed the very 
 pearl of chambermaids, Mrs. Saunders, who retired 
 to become the friend and servant of Mrs. Oldfield. 
 This last lady played but rarely this year ; but Mrs. 
 Horton profited by the opportunity, and Mrs. Porter, 
 as a tragic actress, drew the town. 
 
 Lincoln's Inn was, at least, active in its corre-
 
 PROGRESS OF QUIN, AND DECLINE OF BOOTH 341 
 
 spending season. The progress of Quin is curiously 
 marked. He played Glo'ster to the Lear of Boheme ; 
 Hector, in "Troilus and Cressida," Ryan playing 
 Troilus ; the Duke, in " Measure for Measure ; " Cori- 
 olanus; Aumerle, in "Richard II.;" Aaron, in "Ti- 
 tus Andronicus;" Leonato to Ryan's Benedick, etc. 
 Moreover, while in the " Merry Wives," he played 
 Falstaff with great effect to the Host of Bullock, in 
 the first part of " Henry IV." Bullock played the 
 knight, and Quin the king. The season, remarkable 
 for Shakespearian revivals, creditable to Rich, was 
 also distinguished for the failure of the original pieces 
 produced. The " Chimaera " was a satire by Odell, 
 a Buckinghamshire squire, pensioned by government. 
 It was aimed at the speculators in Change Alley, 
 but it smote them tenderly. The " Fair Captive " 
 was an adaptation by Mrs. Heywood, a lady who 
 began by writing as loosely as Aphra Behn, con- 
 cluded by writing as decorously as Mrs. Chapone ; 
 and left charge to her executors, in 1756, to give no 
 aid to any biography of her that might be attempted, on 
 the ground that the least said was the soonest mended. 
 
 This comedy was only succeeded in dulness by 
 the tragedy which succeeded it, "Antiochus," by 
 Mottley, who could not gain fortune either as poet or 
 placeman. In the play, Antiochus is in love with his 
 father's wife, Stratonice, who, on being surrendered 
 to his son, by her husband, Seleucus, is a little over- 
 joyed, for she loves the younger prince ; but she is 
 also much shocked, and escapes from her embarrass- 
 ment by suicide. 
 
 The next novelty was a tragedy in one act, and 
 with four characters, "Fatal Extravagance," attrib-
 
 342 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 uted to Miller, the son of a Scottish stone-cutter. 
 Miller was a sort of exaggerated Richard Savage ; 
 inferior to him as a poet, and in every respect a more 
 inexcusable vagabond. He had no redeeming traits 
 of character, and he destroyed health and fortune 
 (both restored more than once) as insanely as he did 
 fame and the patience of his friends. In "Fatal 
 Extravagance," Belmour, played by Quin, kills a 
 creditor who holds his bond, of which he also robs 
 the dead man; mixes a "cordial," administers it to 
 his wife and three children (off the stage), drinks and 
 dies. The butchery is soon got through in one act. 
 Miller subsequently declared that the piece was a gift 
 to him from Aaron Hill. That busy and benevolent 
 person had no money to give to a beggar ; so he sat 
 down and wrote a tragedy for him. It was a piece of 
 clever extravagance. 
 
 It was far more amusing than Ambrose Philips's 
 tragedy, the " Briton," which was the sole novelty 
 of the Drury Lane season 1721-22. The tragedy 
 lacked neither skill, poetical spirit, nor incident ; 
 indeed, of love incidents there is something too much. 
 But the amours of Yvor (Wilks) and Gwendolin (Mrs. 
 Booth), the infidelities of Queen Cartismund (Mrs. 
 Porter) to Vanoc (Booth), and the intervention of 
 the Romans in these British domestic matters, inter- 
 ested but for a few nights, if then, an audience ill 
 read in their own primitive history. 
 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields was scarcely more prolific in 
 novelty ; this, with the exception of a poor drama, 
 the " Hibernian Friend," being confined to Sturmy's 
 tragedy, " Love and Duty ; " Lynceus, one of the 
 half-hundred sons of ^Egyptus, by Quin. The love
 
 PROGRESS OF QUIN, AND DECLINE OF BOOTH 343 
 
 is that of Lynceus and his cousin, Hypermnestra ; 
 the duty, that of killing her husband, on the bridal 
 night, by command of her father. The " Distressed 
 Bride," which is the second name of this piece, wisely 
 disobeys her sire, who is ultimately slain ; after 
 which, the young people, sole survivors of fifty 
 couple married yesterday (the bridegrooms all 
 brothers ; and sisters all the brides), are made 
 happy by the hope of long life unembittered by 
 feuds with their kinsfolk. 
 
 The last two tragedies may be looked upon as a 
 backsliding, after "Cato," "Jane Shore," and the 
 " Revenge ; " and in tragedy there was little im- 
 provement for several years. Meanwhile, Lincoln's 
 Inn Fields acquired Walker, from Drury Lane, and 
 Tony Aston, an itinerant actor, the first, perhaps, 
 who travelled the country with an entertainment in 
 which he was the sole performer. On the other 
 hand, the house lost pretty Miss Stone, humourous 
 Kit Bullock (Wilks's son-in-law), and busy George 
 Pack ; the last, the original Marplot, Lissardo, and 
 many similar characters. Pack turned vintner in 
 Charing Cross. Quin's ability was nightly more 
 appreciated. 
 
 There was more "study" for the Drury Lane 
 actors in 1722-23. Mrs. Centlivre's muse died 
 calmly out with the comedy of the "Artifice." In 
 the good scenes there was an approach to sentimen- 
 tal comedy, more fully reached, in November, by 
 Steele, in his "Conscious Lovers," in which Booth 
 played Young Bevil, and Mrs. Oldfield Indiana. 
 There was not an inferior performer in any of the 
 other parts of this comedy, which Fielding sneers at
 
 344 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 by making Parson Adams declare that there were 
 things in it that would do very well in a sermon. 
 Modern critics have called this comedy dull, but 
 decent ; perhaps because Steele affected to claim it 
 as at least moral in its tendency. The truth, how- 
 ever, is, that it is excessively indecent. There is 
 nothing worse in Aphra Behn than the remarks 
 made to Cimberton, the coxcomb with reflection, on 
 Lucinda. This top, played by Griffin, is for winning 
 a beauty by the rules of metaphysics. There is more 
 pathos than humour in this comedy ; the author of 
 which had now recovered his share in the patent, by 
 favour of Sir Robert Walpole ; and it is by directing 
 attention only to such scenes as those between Bevil 
 and Indiana, or between the former and his friend 
 Myrtle (Wilks), that critics have not correctly de- 
 clared that the sentiments are those of the most 
 refined morality ! For the very attempt to render 
 them so, even partially, Sir Richard has been sneered 
 at, very recently, by a writer who looks upon Steele 
 as a fool for preferring to make Bevil the portrait of 
 what a man ought to be rather than what man really 
 was. The story of the piece is admirably manipu- 
 lated and reformed from the "Andria" of Terence, 
 though Tom (Gibber) is but a sorry Davus. 
 
 On one night of the performance of this play, a 
 general officer was observed in the boxes weeping 
 at the distresses of Indiana. The circumstance was 
 noted to Wilks, who, with kindly feeling ever ready, 
 remarked, " I am certain the officer will fight none 
 the worse for it ! " Steele must have had more than 
 ordinary power, if he could draw tears from martial 
 eyes in those days.
 
 PROGRESS OF QUIN, AND DECLINE OF BOOTH 345 
 
 It is not to be supposed that Pope set the author, 
 as a writer, below Crowne ; and yet, in the following 
 lines, where the two are mentioned, there is no very 
 complimentary allusion to Sir Richard : 
 
 " When simple Macer, now of high renown, 
 First sought a poet's fortune in the town, 
 'Twas all th' ambition his high soul could feel, 
 To wear red stockings and to dine with Steele. 
 Some ends of verse his better might afford, 
 And gave the harmless fellow a good word : 
 Set up with these, he ventured on the town, 
 And with a borrowed play outdid poor Crowne. 
 There he stopped short, nor since has writ a tittle, 
 But has the wit to make the most of little." 
 
 Crowne, at least, found something of an imitator 
 in Ambrose Philips, whose tragedy, " Humphrey, 
 Duke of Gloucester " (Duke, Booth ; Beaufort, Cib- 
 ber ; Margaret, Mrs. Oldfield ; Duchess of Gloucester, 
 Mrs. Porter), was produced in this season. It was 
 the last and worst of Philips's three dramatic essays. 
 The insipid additions in the scene of Beaufort's death 
 are justly described by Genest as being in Crowne's 
 vapid and senseless fashion ; and the public would 
 not accept this cold, declamatory, conversational play 
 as a substitute for the varied incidents which go to 
 the making up of the second part of Shakespeare's 
 " Henry VI." 
 
 Even in Doctor Johnson's time, "it was only 
 remembered by its title ; " we may, therefore, here 
 take leave of the old secretary of the Hanover Club, 
 who found more fortune in place and pension in 
 Ireland, than he could derive from poetry and play- 
 writing in England. To the latter country he re-
 
 346 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 turned in 1748, to "enjoy himself," in pursuit of 
 which end he died the following year. Addison once 
 thought him well enough provided for, by being made 
 a Westminster justice. "Nay," said Ambrose, like a 
 virtuous man in comedy, "though poetry be a trade 
 I cannot live by, yet I scorn to owe subsistence to 
 another which I ought not to live by ; " and he nobly 
 gave up the justiceship, as soon as he was other- 
 wise provided for ! 
 
 Philips was followed by an inferior author, but a 
 greater man, Sir Hildebrand Jacobs, with a classical 
 tragedy, " Fatal Constancy," in which all the unities 
 are preserved ; but that did not bring it the nearer to 
 Cato." 
 
 Then followed, in the summer and less fashionable 
 portion of the season, Savage's tragedy, " Sir Thomas 
 Overbury," in which the author played very indiffer- 
 ently the hero. At this time the hapless young 
 man was not widely known, except to those friends 
 on whose charity he lived while he abused it. Fa- 
 voured by Wilks and patronised by Theophilus Gib- 
 ber, the ragged, rakish fellow slunk at nights into 
 the theatre, and by day lounged where he could, com- 
 posing his tragedy on scraps of paper. In producing 
 it, ever ready Aaron Hill assisted him ; and his 
 profits, amounting to about 200, gave him a tem- 
 porary appearance of respectability. Savage is said 
 to have been deeply ashamed of having turned .actor ; 
 but it seems to me that he was only ashamed of 
 having failed. He had neither voice, figure, nor 
 any other qualification for such a profession. The 
 tragedy lived but three days. There is something 
 adroit in the conduct of the plot, and evidence of cor-
 
 PROGRESS OF QUIN, AND DECLINE OF BOOTH 347 
 
 rectness of conjecture as to the truth of the relations 
 between Overbury and Lady Somerset, but there 
 was no vitality therewith ; and the poet gained no 
 lasting fame by the effort. 
 
 Mrs. Heywood followed Savage's example, in act- 
 ing in her own comedy, " A Wife to Be Let ; " but 
 as this and other original pieces or adaptations passed 
 away unheeded or disgraced, I may here conclude my 
 notice of this season, by recording the death of Mrs. 
 Bicknell, a woman, or rather an actress of merit, and 
 the original representative of Cherry, in the " Beaux' 
 Stratagem." 
 
 Against Drury, the house in the Fields long 
 struggled in vain. Audiences, of five or six pounds 
 in value, discouraged the actors. Egleton was not 
 equal to Gibber; yet the "Baron," as he was called 
 from having assumed the title, when squandering his 
 little patrimony in France, was next to Colley in 
 fops. Quin, Ryan, and Boheme, could not attract like 
 Booth, Wilks, and Gibber ; and Hippisley and others, 
 acting "Julius Caesar," as a comic piece, was not a 
 happy idea. Not more so was that of turning the 
 story of " Cartouche," who had recently been broken 
 on the wheel, into a farce. The company lost their 
 best actress, too, in Mrs. Seymour, whom Boheme 
 married and took off the stage, to Ryan's great 
 regret, as she acted admirably up to him. A prom- 
 ising young actor, too, was lost to the troupe, in young 
 Rackstraw. In the summer vacation he was playing 
 Darius, in a booth in Moorfields, no derogation in 
 those days. In the scene in which he is attacked by 
 Bessus and Nabarzanes, one of the latter two thrust 
 his foil at the king so awkwardly, that it entered the
 
 348 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 eye, pierced the brain, and laid the actor, after a 
 scream, dead upon the boards ! 
 
 With this season, it is to be noted that the fortune 
 of Lincoln's Inn mended thanks to the imperti- 
 nence of Colley Gibber. To the latter, a tragedy had 
 been presented by a modest gentleman, of a good old 
 Staffordshire family, named Fenton. He was forty 
 years of age at this time. Gibber knew his antece- 
 dents; that his Jacobite principles had been an ob- 
 stacle to his ordination, for which he was well 
 qualified, and that although he had been secretary 
 and tutor in the family of Lord Orrery, Fenton had 
 also earned his bread in the humble but honourable 
 capacity of usher in a boarding-school. Colley read 
 the tragedy, " Mariamne," and after keeping it un- 
 necessarily long, he returned it, with the advice that 
 Fenton should stick to some honest calling, and 
 cease to woo the Muses. Elijah Fenton, however, 
 had friends who enabled him now to live inde- 
 pendently of labour, and by their counsel he took 
 " Mariamne " to Rich, who immediately brought it 
 out, with Quin as Sohemus, Boheme as Herod, and 
 Mrs. Seymour as Mariamne her one great crea- 
 tion. 
 
 Boheme, in Herod, played well up to the Mariamne 
 of Mrs. Seymour; but he could not approach Mon- 
 dory in that character, in the French play by Tristan. 
 Mondory used to have his audience, on this occasion, 
 departing from him depressed, silent, wrapped in 
 meditation. He surrendered himself entirely to the 
 part, and died of the consequences of his efforts. 
 Herod was as truly the name of the malady to which 
 he succumbed, as Orestes was of that which killed
 
 PROGRESS OF QUIN, AND DECLINE OF BOOTH 349 
 
 Montfleury, as he was playing Oreste, in Racine's 
 tragedy of " Andromaque." 
 
 The old story of Herod and Mariamne is so simple 
 and natural, that it appeals to every heart, in every 
 age. Fenton perilled it by additions ; but the tragedy 
 won a triumph, and the poet to whom Pope paid 
 about 250 for translating four books of the Odys- 
 sey for him, netted four times that sum by this drama. 
 He became famous, and critics did not note the 
 false quantity which the Cambridge man gave to 
 the penultimate of Salome. Fenton was rendered 
 supremely happy, but his dramatic fame rests on 
 this piece alone. He never wooed Melpomene again, 
 but lived calmly the brief seven years of life which 
 followed his success. Like Prior dying at Wimpole, 
 the honoured guest of Harley, Fenton died at East- 
 hampstead, the equally esteemed guest of Sir William 
 Trumbull, son of King William's secretary of state. 
 In Pope's well-known epitaph, Fenton's character is 
 beautifully described in a few simple lines. 
 
 Aaron Hill was the exact opposite of quiet Fenton. 
 His beech-nut oil company having failed, he joined 
 Sir Robert Montgomery in a project for colonising 
 South Carolina ; and this, too, proving unproductive, 
 he turned to the stage, and brought out, in the 
 season of 1723-24, at Drury Lane, his tragedy of 
 "Henry V." an "improvement" of Shakespeare's 
 historical play of the same name. Hill's additions 
 comprise a Harriet (Mrs. Thurmond), for whom he 
 invented a breeches part and some melodramatic sit- 
 uations especially between her and Henry (Booth). 
 Hill cut out all Shakespeare's comic characters ; but 
 he was so anxious for the success of the piece, that
 
 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 he spent ^200 of his own on the scenery, of which 
 he made a present to the managers ; after all, his 
 play failed, despite the brilliant Katherine of Mrs. 
 Oldfield, and the Dauphin of Wilks. 
 
 More successful was the "Captives," by Gay. 
 The ex-mercer was now a poet, whom the " quality " 
 petted ; but he was not yet at the summit of his 
 fame. The "Captives" did not help to raise him. 
 The story was found unnatural, and the style stilted. 
 A Persian captive (Booth) is a Joseph, against whom 
 the Median queen, whom he has offended, vows ven- 
 geance ; in pursuit of which, love and murder are 
 extensively employed. Mrs. Oldfield had one good 
 scene in it as Cydene, captive wife of the Persian 
 Joseph, for whom she entertains a warm regard, of 
 which he is worthy ; yet these actors, well seconded, 
 could only drag the tragedy through seven represen- 
 tations, before it was consigned to oblivion. But the 
 company was strong enough to make their old reper- 
 tory, with Shakespeare in the van, attractive ; and 
 they had nothing to regret, when the season closed, 
 but the death of Pinkethman, who for two and 
 thirty years, and chiefly at Drury Lane, had been 
 the most irresistible laughter- compeller of that stage, 
 on which he had originated Beau Clincher, Old Mira- 
 bel, and a score of similar merry characters. 
 
 The company had not to complain : yet the mana- 
 gers had found it necessary to support their stock- 
 pieces by a novelty a ballet-pantomime, "The 
 Necromancer," by the younger Thurmond, a dancing- 
 master. Rich, at Lincoln's Inn, where "Edwin" 
 could not have drawn a shilling ; where Belisarius 
 (Boheme) begged an obolus in vain ; and Hurst's
 
 PROGRESS OF QUIN, AND DECLINE OF BOOTH 351 
 
 " Roman Maid " (Paulina, Mrs. Moffat) represented a 
 hermit as dwelling in a lone cave, near the Mount 
 Aventine a hermit would be as likely to be found 
 in a wood on Snow Hill Rich, I say, improved on 
 Thurmond's idea, by producing on the 2Oth of De- 
 cember, 1723, "The Necromancer, or the History of 
 Doctor Faustus," and thereby founded pantomime, 
 as it has been established among us, at least during 
 the Christmas-tide, for now a hundred and forty 
 years. 
 
 Rich, with his "Necromancer," conjured all the 
 town within the ring of his little theatre. The splen- 
 dour of the scenes, the vastness of the machinery, 
 and the grace and ability of Rich himself, raised har- 
 lequinade above Shakespeare, and all other poets ; 
 and Quin and Ryan were accounted little of in 
 comparison with the motley hero. The pantomime 
 stood prominently in the bills ; during the nights of 
 its attraction the prices of admission were raised by 
 one-fourth, and the weekly receipts advanced from 
 six hundred (if the house was full every night, which 
 had been a rare case in the Fields) to a thousand 
 pounds. The advanced price displeased the public, 
 with whom ultimately a compromise was made, and 
 a portion returned to those who chose to leave the 
 house before the pantomime commenced. 
 
 While the drama was thus yielding to the attrac- 
 tions of pantomime, a new theatre invited the public. 
 The little theatre in the Haymarket opened its 
 doors for the first time on the I2th of September, 
 1723, with the "French Fop," of which the author, 
 Sandford, says, that he wrote it in a few weeks, 
 when he was but fifteen years of age. That may
 
 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 account for its having straightway died ; but it served 
 to introduce to the stage the utility actor, Mil ward. 
 The theatre was only open for a few nights. 
 
 Of the season 1724-25, at Drury Lane, there is 
 little to be said, save that the inimitable company 
 worked well and profitably in sterling old plays. 
 Wilks returned to Sir Harry Wildair, and the public 
 laughed at Gibber's quivering tragedy tones, when 
 playing Achonus, in his adaptation from Beaumont 
 and Fletcher's "False One." In " Caesar in Egypt," 
 Antony and Cleopatra were played by Wilks and 
 Mrs. Oldfield, who were never more happy than when 
 making love on the stage. This was the sole novelty 
 of the season. 
 
 In the Fields there was more of it, but that most 
 relied on was Rich's " Harlequin Sorcerer," produced 
 on the 2ist of January, 1725. The "Bath Un- 
 masked" was the only original comedy produced. 
 It describes Bath as made up of very unprincipled 
 people, with a good lord to about a score of knaves 
 and hussies. It was the first and not lucky essay of 
 miserable Gabriel Odingsell, who, nine years later, in 
 a fit of madness, hung himself in his house, Thatched 
 Court, Westminster. 
 
 Booth was more brilliant than he had ever yet 
 been, in the Drury Lane season of 1725-26. In 
 Shakespeare he shone conspicuously, and his Hot- 
 spur, to the Prince of Wales of Giffard, from Dublin, 
 charmed as much by its chivalry as Cato did by its 
 dignity. Mrs. Oldfield enjoyed, and Mrs. Gibber, 
 first wife of Theophilus, claimed the favour of the 
 town ; and the elder Gibber surrendered one or two 
 old characters to a younger actor, Bridgewater. Amid
 
 PROGRESS OF QUIN, AND DECLINE OF BOOTH 353 
 
 a succession of old dramas, one novelty only was of- 
 fered, a translation of the " Hecuba " of Euripides, 
 with slight variations. The author was Richard 
 West, son-in-law of Bishop Burnet, and father of 
 young West, the early friend of Walpole and Gray. 
 His play was acted on the 3d of February, 1726, at 
 which time West was Lord Chancellor of Ireland. 
 On the first night a full audience would not listen to 
 the piece, and on the next two nights there was 
 scarcely an audience assembled to listen. Neither 
 Booth as Polymnestor, nor Mrs. Porter as Hecuba, 
 could win the general ear. It did not succeed, wrote 
 the author, "because it was not heard. A rout of 
 Vandals in the galleries intimidated the young ac- 
 tresses, disturbed the audience, and prevented all 
 attention ; and, I believe, if the verses had been re- 
 peated in the original Greek, they would have been 
 understood and received in the same manner." The 
 young actresses were Mrs. Brett and Mrs. Gibber ; 
 the latter was not the famous lady of that name, 
 destined to the highest walks of tragedy. Lord 
 Chancellor West died in December of this year. 
 
 The above single play was, however, worth all the 
 novelties produced by Rich at Lincoln's Inn Fields. 
 These were comedies of a farcical kind. In one of 
 them, the " Capricious Lovers," by Odingsell, there 
 was an original character, Mrs. Mincemode (Mrs. 
 Bullock), who "grew sick at the sight of a man, and 
 refines, upon the significancy of phrases, till she re- 
 solves common observations into indecency." In the 
 " French Fortune-Teller," the public failed to be 
 regaled with a piece stolen from Ravenscroft, who 
 had stolen his from the French. The third play was
 
 354 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 " Money's the Mistress," which the audience damned 
 in spite of the reputation of Southerne, who, with 
 this failure, closed a dramatic career which had com- 
 menced half a century earlier. In its course he had 
 written ten plays, the author of which had this in 
 common with Shakespeare, that he was born at 
 Stratford-on-Avon. 
 
 With this year, 1726-27, came the first symptom 
 of a "break-up" in the hitherto prosperous condition 
 of Drury Lane. It occurred in the first long and 
 serious illness of Booth, which kept him from the 
 theatre, three long and weary months to the town. 
 The season at Drury Lane, however, and that at 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields, had this alike, that after Booth's 
 welcome return, all London was excited by expecta- 
 tions raised by comedies whose authors were " gentle- 
 men," in whose success the "quality," generally, 
 were especially interested. At Drury it was the 
 " Rival Modes," by Moore Smyth ; at Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields, the " Dissembled Wanton, or, My Son, Get 
 Money," by Leonard Welsted. In the former piece 
 there is a gay lover, Bellamine (Wilks), wooing the 
 grave Melissa (Mrs. Porter), while the serious Sagely 
 (Mills) pays suit to the sprightly widow Amoret (Mrs. 
 Oldfield). An old beau of King William's time, 
 Earl of Late Airs (Gibber), brings his son to town 
 (Lord Toupet, a modern beau, by Theophilus Gibber), 
 in order that he may marry Melissa, with her father's 
 consent. Amoret contrives to upset this arrange- 
 ment, and the other lovers are duly united. The 
 plot was good, the players unsurpassable, the two 
 Gibbers fooling it to the top of their bent, and 
 old and new fashions were pleasantly contrasted;
 
 355 
 
 but the action was languid, and the piece was 
 hissed. 
 
 The incident lacking here, abounded in Welsted's 
 intriguing comedy, the "Dissembled Wanton," a 
 character finely acted by Mrs. Younger, whose 
 marriage with Beaufort (Walker) being forbidden by 
 her father, Lord Severne (Quin), by whom she had 
 been sent to France, she reappears in her father's 
 presence as Sir Harry Truelove, whose real character 
 is known only to Emilia (Mrs. Bullock), Lord Sev- 
 erne's ward. Emilia's intimacy with Sir Harry 
 causes the rupture of her marriage with Colonel 
 Severne, and some coarse scenes have to be got 
 through before all is explained ; the respective lovers 
 are united, and Humphrey Staple (Hall) finds it 
 useless to urge his son Toby (W. Bullock) to get 
 money by espousing the rich ward Emilia. 
 
 Although Welsted's comedy was lively, it was 
 found to be ill-written. He had had time enough to 
 polish it, for ten years previous to its production 
 Steele had commended the plot, the moral, and the 
 style ; he had even praised its decency. Like Moore 
 Smyth's, it could not win the town. The respective 
 authors, who made so much ineffectual noise in their 
 own day, would be unknown to us in this, but for the 
 censure of Pope. In the " Dunciad " they enjoy 
 notoriety with Theobald, or Gibber, Gildon, Dennis, 
 Centlivre, and Aaron Hill. Moore was an Oxford 
 man, who assumed his maternal grandfather's name, 
 being his heir, and held one or two lucrative posts 
 under government. His father, the famous Arthur 
 Moore, a wit, a politician, and a statesman, who was 
 long M. P. for Grimsby, had risen, by force of his
 
 356 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 talents, to an eminent position, from a humble station. 
 Pope stooped to call Moore Smyth the son of a foot- 
 man, and, when the latter name was assumed on his 
 taking his maternal grandfather's estates, the Whigs 
 lampooned him as born at "the paternal seat of 
 his family the tap-house of the prison-gate, at 
 Monaghan." 
 
 Moore was on intimate terms with the Mapledur- 
 ham ladies, the Blounts, and with others of Pope's 
 friends, as well as with Pope himself. Some tags of 
 the poet's lines he had introduced into his unlucky 
 comedy, and on this Pope supported a grossly ex- 
 pressed and weakly founded charge of plagiarism. 
 Welsted, who was of a good Leicestershire family, 
 and of fair abilities, had moved Pope's wrath by writ- 
 ing satirical verses against him, and the feeling was 
 embittered when the two dramatists united in address- 
 ing "One Epistle" to Pope, in which they touched 
 him more painfully than he cared to confess. Neither 
 Moore nor Welsted ever tempted fortune on the stage 
 again. " Coestus artemque repono," said the former, 
 on the title-page of his comedy, as if he was reveng- 
 ing himself on society. Welsted confined himself, 
 after some skirmishing with his critics, to his duties 
 in the ordnance office. His wives were women of 
 some mark. The first was the daughter of Purcell ; 
 the second the sister of Walker, the great defender 
 of Londonderry. 
 
 A better gentleman than either, Philip Frowde, 
 scholar, wit, poet, true man, friend of Addison, and a 
 friend to all, was praised by the critics for his 
 " Fall of Saguntum ; " but the public voice did not 
 ratify the judgment, though Ryan, as Fabius, and
 
 PROGRESS OF QUIN, AND DECLINE OF BOOTH 357 
 
 Quin, as Eurydamus, with Mrs. Berriman, as Can- 
 dace, an Amazonian queen, with nothing very 
 womanly about her, exerted themselves to the 
 utmost. One other failure has to be recorded, 
 "Philip of Macedon," by David Lewis, the friend 
 of Pope. With a dull tragedy, Pope's friend had no 
 more chance of misleading the public, than his foes, 
 with weak comedies. The greater poet's commenda- 
 tion so little influenced that public, that on the first 
 night, with Pope himself in the house, the audience 
 was so numerically small, though Walker, Ryan, 
 Quin, Mrs. Berriman, Mrs. Younger, and others, 
 were, in their "habits," as unlike Macedonians as 
 they could well be, the managers deemed acting 
 to such a house not profitable, and dismissed it ac- 
 cordingly. The author's final condemnation was 
 only postponed for a night or two, when he sank, 
 never to rise again. 
 
 With Booth's failing health, and the ill-success of 
 novelties produced at either house, there was a gloom 
 over theatrical matters. But at this very time a sun 
 was rising from behind a cloud. In one of the irreg- 
 ular series of performances, held at the little theatre 
 in the Haymarket, in 1726, there appeared a young 
 lady, in the part of Monimia, in the " Orphan," and 
 subsequently as Cherry, in the " Beaux' Stratagem." 
 She was pretty, clever, and eighteen ; but she was 
 not destined to become either the tragic or the comic 
 queen. Soon after, however, thanks to the judgment 
 of Rich, who gave her the opportunity, she was hailed 
 as the queen of English song. She was known as 
 Lavinia Fenton, but she was the daughter of a naval 
 lieutenant, named Beswick. Her widowed mother
 
 358 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 had married a coffee-house keeper in Charing Cross, 
 whose name of Fenton was assumed by his step- 
 daughter. Before we shall hear of her at Lincoln's 
 Inn Fields, a lieutenant will be offering her every- 
 thing he possessed, except his name ; but Lavinia, 
 without being as discreet, was even more successful 
 than Pamela, and died a duchess. 
 
 Throughout the reign of George I., Barton Booth 
 kept his position as the first English tragedian, 
 undisturbed even by the power of Quin. Associated 
 with him were comedians, Wilks, Gibber, Mrs. 
 Oldfield, Porter, Horton, and others, who shed splen- 
 dour on the stage, at this period. The new dramatic 
 poets of that reign were few, and not more than one 
 of those few can be called distinguished. The name 
 of Young alone survives in the memory, and that but 
 for one tragedy, the " Revenge." Of comedies, there 
 is not one of the reign of George I. that is even read 
 for its merits. It is otherwise with the comedies of 
 an actress and dramatist who died in this reign, 
 Susanna Centlivre; and yet a contemporary notice 
 of her death simply states that, as an actress, " having 
 a greater inclination to wear the breeches than the 
 petticoat, she struck into the men's parts ; " and that 
 the dramatist "had a small wen on her left eyelid, 
 which gave her a masculine air." 
 
 Eventful to both houses was the season of 1727-28. 
 It was the last season of Booth, at Drury Lane ; and 
 it was the first of the " Beggar's Opera," at Lincoln's 
 Inn Fields. After thirty years' service, in the reigns 
 of William, Anne, George I., and now in that of 
 George II., in which Garrick was to excel him, that 
 admirable actor was compelled, by shattered health,
 
 359 
 
 to withdraw. For many nights he played Henry 
 VIII., and walked in the coronation scene, which 
 was tacked to various other plays, in honour of the 
 accession of George II., who, with the royal family, 
 went, on the 7th of November, to witness Booth 
 enact the king. On the Qth of January, Booth, after 
 a severe struggle, played, for the sixth and last time, 
 Julio, in the "Double Falsehood;" a play which 
 Theobald ascribed to Shakespeare ; Doctor Farmer, 
 to Shirley ; others, to Massinger ; but which was 
 chiefly Theobald's own, founded on a manuscript 
 copy which, through Downes, the prompter, had 
 descended to him from Betterton ; and which served 
 Colman, who certainly derived his Octavian from 
 Julio. 
 
 The loss in Booth was, in some degree, supplied 
 by the " profit " arising from a month's run of a new 
 comedy by Vanbrugh and Gibber, the " Provoked 
 Husband ; " in which the Lord and Lady Townly 
 were played by these incomparable lovers, Wilks 
 and Mrs. Oldfield. Gibber acted Sir Francis Wrong- 
 head, and young Wetherell, Squire Richard. Van- 
 brugh was at this time dead in 1 726, at his house 
 in Whitehall, of quinsy. The critics and enemies of 
 Gibber were sadly at fault, on this occasion. Hating 
 him for his "Nonjuror," they hissed all the scenes 
 of which they supposed him to be the author, and ap- 
 plauded those which they were sure were by Van- 
 brugh. Gibber published the imperfect play left by 
 Sir John, and thereby showed that his adversaries 
 condemned and approved exactly in the wrong places. 
 
 Gibber enjoyed another triumph this season. 
 Steele, abandoning the responsibilities of manage-
 
 360 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 ment, to follow his pleasure, had submitted to a 
 deduction of ji i$s. 4</., nightly, to each of his 
 partners, for performing his duties. Steele was at 
 this time in Wales, dying, though he survived till 
 September, 1729. His creditors, meanwhile, claimed 
 the " five marks " as their own, and the case went 
 into the Rolls Court, before Sir Joseph Jekyll. 
 Gibber pleaded in person the cause of himself and 
 active partners, and so convincingly, that he obtained 
 a decree in their favour. 
 
 In presence of this new audience, the old actor 
 confesses he felt fear. He carried with him the 
 heads of what he was about to urge ; but, says Colley, 
 " when it came to the critical moment, the dread and 
 apprehension of what I had undertaken so discon- 
 certed my courage, that though I had been used to 
 talk to above fifty thousand people every winter, for 
 upwards of thirty years together, an involuntary and 
 unexpected proof of confusion fell from my eyes ; 
 and as I found myself quite out of my element, I 
 seemed rather gasping for life, than in a condition to 
 cope with the eminent orators against me." Gibber, 
 however, recovered himself, and vanquished his ad- 
 versaries, though two of them were of the stuff that 
 won for them, subsequently, the dignity of lord 
 chancellor. 
 
 The "Beggar's Opera" season at Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields was the most profitable ever known there. 
 Swift's idea of a Newgate pastoral was adopted by 
 Gay, who, smarting under disappointment of prefer- 
 ment at court, and angry at the offer to make him 
 gentleman-usher to the youngest of the royal children, 
 indulged his satirical humour against ministers and
 
 PROGRESS OF QUIN, AND DECLINE OF BOOTH 361 
 
 placemen, by writing a Newgate comedy, at which 
 Swift and Pope shook their heads, and old Congreve, 
 for one of whose three sinecures Gay would have 
 given his ears, was sorely perplexed as to whether it 
 would bring triumph or calamity to its author. The 
 songs were added, but Gibber, as doubtful as Con- 
 greve, declined what Rich eagerly accepted, and the 
 success of which was first discerned by the Duke of 
 Argyle, from his box on the stage, who looked at 
 the house, and " saw it in the eyes of them." 
 
 Walker, who had been playing tragic parts, and 
 very recently Macbeth, was chosen for Macheath, on 
 Quin declining the highwayman. Lavinia Fenton 
 was Polly ; Peacham, by Hippisley ; and Spiller made 
 a distinctive character of Mat o' the Mint. Walker 
 " knew no more of music than barely singing in tune ; 
 but then his singing was supported by his inimitable 
 action, by his speaking to the eye and charming the 
 ear." It was at the close of a long run of the piece 
 that Walker once tripped in his words. " I wonder," 
 said Rich, "that you should forget the words of a 
 part you have played so often ! " " Do you think," 
 asked Walker, with happy equivocation, " that a man's 
 memory is to last for ever ? " 
 
 Sixty-two nights in this season the " Beggar's 
 Opera" drew crowded houses. Highwaymen grew 
 fashionable, and ladies not only carried fans adorned 
 with subjects from the opera, but sang the lighter, 
 and hummed the coarser, songs. Sir Robert Walpole, 
 who was present on the first night, finding the eyes 
 of the audience turned on him as Locket was singing 
 his song touching courtiers and bribes, was the first 
 to blunt the point of the satire, by calling encore.
 
 362 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Swift says, "two great ministers were in a box 
 together, and all the world staring at them." At 
 this time it was said that the quarrel of Peacham 
 and Locket was an imitation of that of Brutus and 
 Cassius, but the public discerned therein Walpole 
 and his great adversary, Townshend. 
 
 "'The Beggar's Opera' hath knocked down Gulli- 
 ver," wrote Swift to Gay. " I hope to see Pope's 
 ' Dulness ' " (the first name of the " Dunciad ") " knock 
 down the ' Beggar's Opera,' but not till it hath fully 
 done its job." But Gay had no "mission ; " he only 
 sought to gratify himself and the town ; to satirise, 
 not to teach or to warn; the "opera" made "Gay 
 rich, and Rich gay ; " the former sufficiently so to 
 make him forego earning a fee of twenty guineas by 
 a dedication, and the latter only so far sad, that at 
 the end of the season, Lavinia Fenton, after two 
 benefits, was taken off the stage by the Duke of 
 Bolton. The latter had from his wedding-day hated 
 his wife, daughter and sole heiress of the Earl of 
 Carbery ; but his love for Lavinia was so abounding 
 that, on his wife's death, he made a duchess of 
 " Polly ; " but their three sons were not born at a 
 time that rendered either of them heir to the ducal 
 coronet, which, in 1754, passed to the duke's brother. 
 Gay's author's night realised a gain to him of 700, 
 and enabled him to dress in "silver and blue." 
 While he is blazing abroad, the once great master, 
 Booth, is slowly dying out. Let us tell his varied 
 story as his life ebbs surely away.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 BARTON BOOTH 
 
 AT this period it was evident that the stage was 
 about to lose its greatest tragedian since the death of 
 Betterton. Booth was stricken past recovery, and 
 all the mirth caused by the " Beggar's Opera " could 
 not make his own peculiar public forget him. 
 Scarcely eight and thirty years had elapsed since the 
 time when, in 1690, a handsome, well-bred lad, whose 
 age did not then amount to two lustres, sought ad- 
 mission into Westminster School. Doctor Busby 
 thought him too young; but young Barton Booth 
 was the son of a gentleman, was of the family of 
 Booth, Earl of Warrington, and was a remarkably 
 clever and attractive boy. The doctor, whose acting 
 had been commended by Charles I., perhaps thought 
 of the school plays, and recognised in little Barton 
 the promise of a lover in Terence's comedies. At 
 all events, he admitted the applicant. 
 
 Barton Booth, a younger son of a Lancashire sire, 
 was destined for Holy Orders. He was a fine elocu- 
 tionist, and he took to Latin as readily as Erasmus ; 
 but then he had Nicholas Rowe for a schoolfellow ; 
 and, one day, was cast for Pamphilus in the " Andria." 
 Luckily, or unluckily, he played this prototype of 
 
 363
 
 364 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 young Bevil in Sleele's " Conscious Lovers " with 
 such ease, perfection, and charming intelligence, that 
 the old dormitory shook with plaudits. The shouts 
 of approbation changed the whole purpose of his 
 sire ; they deprived the Church of a graceful clergy- 
 man, and gave to the stage one of the most celebrated 
 of our actors. 
 
 He was but seventeen, when his brilliant folly led 
 him to run away from home, and tempt fortune, by 
 playing Oronooko in Dublin. The Irish audiences 
 confirmed the judgment of the Westminster critics, 
 and the intelligent lad moved the hands of the men 
 and the hearts of the women, without a check, during 
 a glorious three years of probation. And yet he 
 narrowly escaped failure, through a ridiculous acci- 
 dent, when, in 1698, he made his d^but as Oronooko. 
 It was a sultry night in June. While waiting to go 
 on, before his last scene, he inadvertently wiped his 
 darkened face, and the lampblack thereon came off 
 in streaks. On entering on the stage, unconscious 
 of the countenance he presented, he was saluted with 
 a roar of laughter, and became much confused. The 
 generous laughers then sustained him by loud applause. 
 But Booth was disturbed by this accident, and to 
 obviate its repetition, he went on the next night in 
 a crape mask, made by an actress to fit close to his 
 face. Unfortunately, in the first scene the mask 
 slipped, and the new audience was as hilarious as 
 the old. " I looked like a magpie," said Barton ; 
 " but they lampblacked me for the rest of the night, 
 and I was flayed before I could get it off again." 
 The mishap of the first night did not affect his tri- 
 umph ; this was so complete, that Ashbury, the
 
 BARTON BOOTH 365 
 
 " master," made him a present of five guineas ; bright 
 forerunners of the fifty that were to be placed in his 
 hands by delighted Bolingbroke. 
 
 The hitherto penniless player was now fairly on 
 the first step of the ascent it was his to accomplish. 
 When he subsequently passed through Lancashire to 
 London, in 1701, his fame had gone before him ; he 
 reached the capital with his manly beauty to gain 
 him additional favour, with a heavy purse, and a 
 steady conviction of even better fortune to come. 
 With such a personage, his hitherto angry kinsmen 
 were, of course, reconciled forthwith. 
 
 One morning early in that year, 1701, he might 
 have been seen leaving Lord Fitzharding's rooms at 
 St. James's, with Bowman, the player, and making 
 his way to Betterton's house in Great Russell Street. 
 From the lord in waiting to Prince George of Den- 
 mark, he carries a letter of recommendation to the 
 father of the stage ; and generous old Thomas, jeal- 
 ous of no rival, depreciator of no talent, gave the 
 stranger a hearty welcome ; heard his story, asked 
 for a taste of his quality, imparted good counsel, took 
 him into training, and ultimately brought him out at 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1701, as Maximus, in Roches- 
 ter's "Valentinian." Betterton played Atius, and 
 Mrs. Barry, Lucina. These two alone were enough 
 to daunt so young an actor ; but Booth was not vain 
 enough to be too modest, and the public at once 
 hailed in him a new charmer. His ease, grace, fire, 
 and the peculiar harmony of his voice, altogether dis- 
 tinct from that of Betterton's, created a great im- 
 pression. "Booth with the silver tongue," gained 
 the epithet before Barry was born. Westminster
 
 366 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 subsequently celebrated him in one of her school 
 prologues : 
 
 Old Roscius to our Booth must bow, 
 'Twas then but art, 'tis nature now." 
 
 And the district was proud of both players : of the 
 young one of gentle blood, educated in St. Peter's 
 College ; and of the old one, the royal cook's son, 
 who was christened in St. Margaret's, August 12, 
 
 1635- 
 
 At first, Booth was thought of as a promising 
 undergraduate of the buskin, and he had faults to 
 amend. He confessed to Gibber that " he had been 
 for some time too frank a lover of the bottle ; " but 
 having the tipsiness of Powell ever before him as a 
 terrible warning, he made a resolution of maintaining 
 a sobriety of character, from which he never departed. 
 Gibber pronounces this to be "an uncommon act of 
 philosophy in a young man ; " but he adds, that "in 
 his fame and fortune he afterward enjoyed the reward 
 and benefit." 
 
 For a few years, then, Booth had arduous work to 
 go through, and every sort of "business" to play. 
 The House in the Fields, too, suffered from the 
 tumblers, dancers, and sagacious animals, added to 
 the ordinary and well-acted plays at the House in 
 the Lane. Leisure he had also, amid all his labour, 
 to pay successful suit to a young lady, the daughter 
 of a Norfolk baronet, Sir William Barkham, whom he 
 married in 1704. The lady died childless six years 
 later. Till this last period that, too, of the death 
 of Betterton Booth may be said to have been in 
 his minority as an actor, or, as Gibber puts it, " only
 
 BARTON BOOTH 367 
 
 in the promise of that reputation," which he soon 
 after happily arrived at. Not that when that was 
 gained he deemed himself perfect. The longest life, 
 he used to say, was not long enough to enable an 
 actor to be perfect in his art. 
 
 Previous to 1710 he had created many new char- 
 acters ; among others, Dick, in the " Confederacy ; " 
 and he had played the Ghost in " Hamlet," with such 
 extraordinary power, such a supernatural effect, so 
 solemn, so majestic, and so affecting, that it was only 
 second in attraction to the Dane of Betterton. But 
 Pyrrhus and Cato were yet to come. Meanwhile, 
 soon after his wife's death, he played Captain Worthy, 
 in the "Fair Quaker of Deal," to the Dorcas Zeal of 
 Miss Santlow, destined to be his second wife but 
 not just yet. 
 
 The two great characters created by him, between 
 the year when he played with Miss Santlow in Charles 
 Shadwell's comedy, and that in which he married her, 
 were Pyrrhus, in the "Distressed Mother" (1712), 
 and "Cato" (1713). Within the limits stated, Booth 
 kept household with poor Susan Mountfort, the 
 daughter of the abler actress of that name. At such 
 arrangements society took small objection, and beyond 
 the fact, there was nothing to carp at in Barton's 
 home. The latter was broken up, however, the 
 lady being in fault, in 1718, when Booth, who had 
 been the faithful steward of Susan's savings, con- 
 signed to her ^3,200, which were speedily squan- 
 dered by her next "friend," Mr. Minshull. The 
 hapless young creature became insane ; in which 
 condition it is credibly asserted that she one night 
 went through the part of Ophelia, with a melancholy
 
 368 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 wildness which rendered many of her hearers almost 
 as distraught as herself ; soon after which she died. 
 Meanwhile, her more faithful friend, the acknowl- 
 edged successor of Betterton, achieved his two great- 
 est triumphs in characters originally represented 
 by him Pyrrhus and Cato. Those who have 
 experienced the affliction of seeing or reading the 
 " Distressed Mother," may remember that the heavi- 
 est part in that heavy play is that of Pyrrhus. But 
 in acting it, Booth set the Orestes of less careful 
 Powell in the shade. " His entrance," says Victor, 
 " his walking and mounting to the throne, his sitting 
 down, his manner of giving audience to the ambas- 
 sador, his rising from the throne, his descending and 
 leaving the stage, though circumstances of a very 
 common character in theatrical performances, yet 
 were executed by him with a grandeur not to be 
 described." 
 
 But it is with "Cato" that Booth is identified. 
 Fortunate it was for him that the play Addison had 
 kept so long in his desk was not printed, according 
 to Pope's advice, for readers only. Fortunate, too, 
 was the actor in the political coincidences of the time. 
 Marlborough, now a Whig, had asked to be appointed 
 " commander-in-chief for life." Harley, Bolingbroke, 
 and the other Tories described this as an attempt to 
 establish a perpetual dictatorship. The action and 
 the sentiment of " Cato " are antagonistic to such an 
 attempt, and the play had a present political, as well 
 as a great dramatic, interest. Common consent gave 
 the part of the philosopher of Utica to Booth ; Addi- 
 son named young Ryan, son of a Westminster tailor, 
 as Marcus, and the young fellow justified the nomina-
 
 BARTON BOOTH 369 
 
 tion. Wilks, Gibber, and Mrs. Oldfield filled the 
 other principal parts. Addison surrendered all claim 
 to profit, and on the evening of April 14, 1713, there 
 was excitement and expectation on both sides of the 
 curtain. 
 
 Booth really surpassed himself ; his dignity, pathos, 
 energy, were all worthy of Betterton, and yet were in 
 nowise after the old actor's manner. The latter was 
 forgotten on this night, and Booth occupied exclu- 
 sively the public eye, ear, and heart. The public 
 judgment answered to the public feeling. The Tories 
 applauded every line in favour of popular liberty, and 
 the Whigs sent forth responsive peals to show that 
 they, too, were advocates of popular freedom. The 
 pit was in a whirlwind of delicious agitation, and the 
 Tory occupants of the boxes were so affected by 
 the acting of Booth, that Bolingbroke, when the play 
 was over, sent for the now greatest actor of the 
 day, and presented him with a purse containing fifty 
 guineas, the contributions of gentlemen who had 
 experienced the greatest delight at the energy with 
 which he had resisted a perpetual dictatorship, and 
 maintained the cause of public liberty ! The mana- 
 gers paid the actor a similar pecuniary compliment, 
 and for five and thirty consecutive nights " Cato " 
 filled Drury Lane, and swelled the triumph of Barton 
 Booth. There was no longer anything sad in the old 
 exclamation of Steele, " Ye gods ! what a part would 
 Betterton make of Cato ! " The managers, Wilks, 
 Gibber, and Doggett, were as satisfied as the public, 
 for the share of profit to each at the end of this event- 
 ful season amounted to ^1,350! 
 
 When Booth and his fellow actors, after the close
 
 37 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 of the London season, went to Oxford, to play 
 "Cato," before a learned and critical audience, "our 
 house was in a manner invested, and entrance de- 
 manded by twelve o'clock at noon ; and before one, 
 it was not wide enough for many who came too late 
 for places. The same crowds continued for three 
 days together (an uncommon curiosity in that place), 
 and the death of Cato triumphed over the injuries of 
 Caesar everywhere. At our taking leave, we had the 
 thanks of the vice-chancellor, 'for the decency and 
 order observed by our whole society ; ' an honour," 
 adds Cibber, proudly, "which had not always been 
 paid on the same occasion." Four hundred and fifty 
 pounds clear profit were shared by the managers, who 
 gave the actors double pay, and sent a contribution of 
 $0 toward the repairs of St. Mary's Church. 
 
 The Church, of which Booth was intended to be 
 a minister, added its approbation, through Doctor 
 Smalridge, Dean of Carlisle, who was present at the 
 performance in Oxford. "I heartily wish all dis- 
 courses from the pulpit were as instructive and edi- 
 fying, as pathetic and affecting, as that which the 
 audience was then entertained with from the stage." 
 This is a reproach to Church-preachers at the cost 
 of a compliment to Booth ; and old Compton, ex- 
 dragoon, and now dying Bishop of London, would 
 not have relished it. Some of the metropolitan pul- 
 pits were, no doubt, less " entertaining " than the 
 stage, but many of them were held to good purpose ; 
 and, as for the Nonconformist chapels, of which 
 Smalridge knew nothing, there, enthusiastic Pom- 
 fret and Matthew Clarke were drawing as great 
 crowds as Booth ; Bradbury, that cheerful-minded
 
 BARTON BOOTH 371 
 
 patriarch of the Dissenters, was even more enter- 
 taining; while Neale was pathetic and earnest in 
 Aldersgate Street ; and John Gale, affecting and 
 zealous, amid his eager hearers in Barbican. There 
 is no greater mistake than in supposing that at this 
 time the whole London world was engaged in resort- 
 ing exclusively to the theatres, and especially to 
 behold Booth in " Cato." 
 
 The grandeur of this piece has become somewhat 
 dulled, but it contains more true sayings constantly 
 quoted than any other English work, save Gray's 
 " Elegy." It has been translated into French, Italian, 
 Latin, and Russian, and has been played in Italy and 
 in the Jesuits' College at St. Omer. Pope adorned 
 it with a prologue ; Doctor Garth trimmed it with an 
 epilogue ; dozens of poets wrote testimonial verses ; 
 tippling Eusden gave it his solemn sanction, while 
 Dennis, with some " horseplay raillery," but with 
 irrefutable argument, inexorably proved that, despite 
 beauties of diction, it is one of the most absurd, incon- 
 sistent, and unnatural plays ever conceived by poet. 
 But, Johnson remarks truly, " as we love better to be 
 pleased than to be taught, Cato' is read, and the critic 
 is neglected." 
 
 Booth reaped no brighter triumph than in this 
 character, in which he has had worthy, but never 
 equally able successors. Boheme was respectable in 
 it ; Quin imposing, and generally successful ; Sheri- 
 dan, conventional, but grandly eloquent ; Mossop, 
 heavy; Walker, a failure; Digges, stagy ; Kemble, 
 next to the original ; Pope, " mouthy ; " Cooke, alto- 
 gether out of his line ; Wright, weak ; Young, tra- 
 ditional but effective; and Vandenhoff, classically
 
 37* THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 correct and statuesque. In Cato, the name of 
 Booth stands supreme; in that, the kinsman of the 
 Earls of Warrington was never equalled. It was his 
 good fortune, too, not to be admired less because of 
 the affection for Betterton in the hearts of surviving 
 admirers. This is manifest from the lines of Pope : 
 
 " On Avon's bank where flowers eternal blow, 
 If I but ask, if any weed can grow ? 
 One tragic sentence if I dare deride, 
 Which Betterton's grave action dignified, 
 Or well-mouthed Booth with emphasis proclaims 
 (Though but perhaps a muster-roll of names), 
 How will our fathers rise up in a rage, 
 And swear all shame is lost in George's age I " 
 
 The performance of " Cato " raised Booth to fortune 
 as well as to fame ; and through Bolingbroke he was 
 appointed to a share in the profits of the management 
 of Drury Lane, with Gibber, Wilks, and Doggett. 
 The last named, thereupon, retired in disgust, with 
 compensation ; and Gibber hints that Booth owed his 
 promotion as much to his Tory sentiments as to 
 his merits in acting Cato. The new partner had 
 to pay 600 for his share of the stock property, 
 " which was to be paid by such sums as should arise 
 from half his profits of acting, till the whole was 
 discharged." This incumbrance upon his share he 
 discharged out of the income he received in the first 
 year of his joint management. 
 
 His fame, however, by this time had culminated. 
 He sustained it well, but he cannot be said to have 
 increased it. No other such a creation as " Cato " fell 
 to his lot. Young and Thomson could not serve bin
 
 BARTON BOOTH 373 
 
 as Addison and opportunity had done, and if he can 
 be said to have won additional laurels after " Cato," it 
 was in the season of 1722-23, when he played Young 
 Bevil, in Steele's " Conscious Lovers," with a success 
 which belied the assertion that he was inefficient in 
 genteel comedy. The season of 1725-26 was also 
 one of his most brilliant. 
 
 Meanwhile, a success off the stage secured him as 
 much happiness as, on it, he had acquired wealth 
 and reputation. The home he had kept with Susan 
 Mountfort was broken up. In the course of this 
 "intimate alliance of strict friendship," as the moral 
 euphuists called it, Booth had acted with remarkable 
 generosity toward the lady. In the year 1714, they 
 bought several tickets in the State Lottery, and 
 agreed to share equally whatever fortune might 
 ensue. Booth gained nothing ; the lady won a prize 
 of ^5,000, and kept it. His friends counselled him 
 to claim half the sum, but he laughingly remarked 
 that there had never been any but a verbal agreement 
 on the matter ; and since the result had been fortunate 
 for his friend, she should enjoy it all. 
 
 A truer friend he found in Miss Santlow, the 
 "Santlow famed for dance," of Gay. From the 
 ballet she had passed to the dignity of an actress, 
 and Booth had been enamoured of her "poetry of 
 motion " before he had played Worthy to her Dorcas 
 Zeal. He described her, with all due ardour, in an 
 "Ode on Mira, Dancing," as resembling Venus in 
 shape, air, mien, and eyes, and striking a whole thea- 
 tre with love, when alone she filled the spacious 
 scene. Thus was Miss Santlow in the popular 
 Cato's eyes :
 
 374 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 " Whether her easy body bend, 
 
 Or her fair bosom heave with sighs; 
 Whether her graceful arms extend, 
 
 Or gently fall, or slowly rise, 
 Or returning, or advancing ; 
 Swimming round, or side-long glancing ; 
 Gods, how divine an air 
 Harmonious gesture gives the fair ! " 
 
 Her grace of motion effected more than eloquence, 
 at least so Booth thought, who thus sang the nymph 
 in her more accelerated steps to conquest : 
 
 " But now the flying fingers strike the lyre, 
 
 The sprightly notes the nymph inspire. 
 
 She whirls around ! she bounds ! she springs ! 
 
 As if Jove's messenger had lent her wings. 
 Such'Daphne was . . . 
 Such were her lovely limbs, so flushed her charming face ! 
 
 So round her neck ! her eyes so fair! 
 So rose her swelling chest ! so flow'd her amber hair ! 
 
 While her swift feet outstript the wind, 
 And left the enamour'd God of Day behind." 
 
 Now, this goddess became to Booth one of the 
 truest, most charming, and most unselfish of mortal 
 wives. But see of what perilous stuff she was made 
 who enraptured the generally unruffled poet Thom- 
 son almost as much as she did Barton Booth. For 
 her smiles, Marlborough had given what he least 
 cared to part with, gold. Craggs, the secretary 
 of state, albeit a barber's son, had made her spouse, 
 in all but name, and their daughter was mother to 
 the first Lord St. Germains, and, by a second mar- 
 riage, of the first Marquis of Abercorn. The Sant- 
 low blood thus danced itself into very excellent
 
 BARTON BOOTH 375 
 
 company ; but the aristocracy gave good blood to 
 the stage, as well as took gay blood from it. Con- 
 temporary with Booth and Mrs. Santlow were the 
 sisters, frolic Mrs. Bicknell and Mrs. Younger. They 
 were nearly related to Keith, Earl Marshal of Scot- 
 land. Their father had served in Flanders under 
 King William, "perhaps," says Mr. Carruthers, in 
 his "Life of Pope," "rode by the side of Steele, 
 whence Steele's interest in Mrs. Bicknell, whom he 
 praises in the Tatler and Spectator.'" Mrs. Younger, 
 in middle age, married John, brother of the seventh 
 Earl of Winchelsea. 
 
 When Miss Santlow left the ballet for comedy, 
 it was accounted one of the lucky incidents in the 
 fortune of Drury. Dorcas Zeal, in the " Fair Quaker 
 of Deal," was the first original part in which Miss 
 Santlow appeared. Gibber says, somewhat equivo- 
 cally, " that she was then in the full bloom of what 
 beauty she might pretend to," and he, not very 
 logically, adds, that her reception as an actress was, 
 perhaps, owing to the admiration she had excited as 
 a dancer. The part was suited to her figure and 
 capacity. "The gentle softness of her voice, the 
 composed innocence of her aspect, the modesty of 
 her dress, the reserved decency of her gesture, and 
 the simplicity of the sentiments that naturally fell 
 from her, made her seem the amiable maid she 
 represented." 
 
 Many admirers, however, regretted that she had 
 abandoned the ballet for the drama. They mourned 
 as if Terpsichore herself had been on earth to charm 
 mankind, and had gone never to return. They 
 remembered, longed for, and now longed in vain for,
 
 37 6 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 that sight which used to set a whole audience half 
 distraught with delight, when in the very ecstasy of 
 her dance, Santlow contrived to loosen her cluster- 
 ing auburn hair, and letting it fall about such a 
 neck and shoulders as Praxiteles could more readily 
 imagine than imitate, danced on, the locks flying in 
 the air, and half a dozen hearts at the end of every 
 one of them. 
 
 The union of Booth and Miss Santlow was as 
 productive of happiness as that of Betterton and 
 Miss Saunderson. Indeed, with some few excep- 
 tions, the marriages of English players have been 
 generally so. As much, perhaps, can hardly be said 
 of the alliances of French actors. Moliere had but 
 a miserable time of it with Mile. Bejart ; but 
 he revenged himself by producing domestic inci- 
 dents of a stormy and aggravating nature on the 
 stage. The status of the French players was even 
 lower, in one respect, than that of their English 
 brethren. The French ecclesiastical law did not 
 allow of marrying or giving in marriage amongst 
 actors. They were excommunicated, by the mere 
 fact that they were stage-players. The Church 
 refused them the sacrament of marriage, and a loving 
 couple who desired to be honestly wed, were driven 
 into lying. It was their habit to retire from their 
 profession, get married as individuals who had no 
 vocation, and, the honeymoon over, to return again 
 to the stage and their impatient public. The Church 
 was aware of the subterfuge, and did its utmost to 
 establish the concubinage of parties thus united ; but 
 civil law and royal influence invariably declared that 
 these marriages were valid, seeing that the contract-
 
 BARTON BOOTH 377 
 
 ing parties were not excommunicated actors when 
 the ceremony was performed, whatever they may 
 have been a month before, or a month after. 
 
 No such difficulties as these had to be encountered 
 by Booth and Miss Santlow ; and the former lost 
 no opportunity to render justice to the excellence of 
 his wife. This actor's leisure was a learned leisure. 
 Once, in his poetic vein, when turning an ode of his 
 favourite "Horace" into English, he went into an 
 original digression on the becomingness of a mar- 
 ried life, and the peculiar felicity it had brought to 
 himself. Thus sang the Benedick when the union 
 was a few brief years old : 
 
 " Happy the hour when first our souls were joined I 
 The social virtues and the cheerful mind 
 Have ever crowned our days, beguiled our pain; 
 Strangers to discord and her clamorous train. 
 Connubial friendship, hail ! but haste away, 
 The lark and nightingale reproach thy stay; 
 From splendid theatres to rural scenes, 
 Joyous retire ! so bounteous Heav'n ordains. 
 There we may dwell in peace. 
 There bless the rising morn, and flow'ry field, 
 Charm'd with the guiltless sports the woods and waters 
 yield." 
 
 But neither the married nor the professional life 
 of Booth was destined to be of long continuance. 
 His health began to give way before he was forty. 
 The managers hoped they had found a fair substi- 
 tute for him in the actor Elrington. Tom Elrington 
 subsequently became so great a favourite with the 
 Dublin audience that they remembered his Bajazet 
 as preferable to that of Barry or Mossop, on the
 
 378 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 ground that in that character his voice could be 
 heard beyond the Blind Quay, whereas that of the 
 other named actors was not audible outside the 
 house ! Elrington had none of the scholar-like train- 
 ing of Booth. He was originally apprentice to an 
 upholsterer in Covent Garden, was wont to attend 
 plays unknown to his master, and to act in them 
 privately, and with equal lack of sanction. His 
 master was a vivacious Frenchman, who, one day, 
 came upon him as, under the instruction of Chet- 
 wood, he was studying a part in some stilted and 
 ranting tragedy. The stagestruck apprentice, in 
 his agitation, sewed his book up inside the cushion, 
 on which he was at work, " while he and Chetwood 
 exchanged many a desponding look, and every stitch 
 went to both their hearts." The offenders escaped 
 detection ; but on another occasion the Frenchman 
 came upon his apprentice as he was enacting the 
 Ghost in " Hamlet," when he laid the spirit with 
 irresistible effect of his good right arm. Elrington 
 was, from the beginning, a sort of " copper Booth." 
 His first appearance on the stage, at Drury Lane, 
 in 1709, was in Oronooko, the character in which 
 Booth had made his coup d'essai in Dublin. He was 
 ambitious, too, and had influential support. When 
 Gibber refused to allow him to play Torrismond, 
 while Elrington was yet young, a noble friend of 
 the actor asked the manager to assign cause for the 
 refusal. Colley was not at a loss. " It is not with 
 us as with you, my lord," said he ; " your lordship 
 is sensible that there is no difficulty in filling places 
 at court, you cannot be at a loss for persons to act 
 their parts there ; but I assure you, it is quite other-
 
 BARTON BOOTH 379 
 
 wise in our theatrical world. If we should invest 
 people with characters they should be unable to 
 support, we should be undone." 
 
 Elrington, after a few years of success in Dublin, 
 boldly attempted to take rank in London with Booth 
 himself. He began the attempt in his favourite part 
 of Bajazet, Booth playing Tamerlane. The latter, 
 we are told by Victor, "being in full force, and 
 perhaps animated by a spirit of emulation toward 
 the new Bajazet, exerted all his powers ; and Elring- 
 ton owned to his friends, that never having felt the 
 force of such an actor, he was not aware that it was 
 in the power of mortal to soar so much above him 
 and shrink him into nothing." Booth was quite 
 satisfied with his own success, for he complimented 
 Elrington on his, adding, that his Bajazet was ten 
 times as good as that of Mills, who had pretensions 
 to play the character. The compliment was not 
 ill-deserved : for Elrington possessed many of the 
 natural and some of the acquired qualifications of 
 Booth, whom perhaps he equalled in Oronooko. He 
 undoubtedly excelled Mills in Zanga, of which the 
 latter was the original representative. After Doctor 
 Young had seen Elrington play it, he went round, 
 shook him cordially by the hand, thanked him 
 heartily, and declared he had never seen the part 
 done such justice to, as by him : " acknowledging, 
 with some regret," says Doctor Lewis, "that Mills 
 did but growl and mouth the character." Such was 
 the actor who became for a time Booth's " double," 
 and might have become his rival. During the illness 
 of the latter, in 1728-29, Elrington, we are told, was 
 the principal support of tragedy in Drury Lane. At
 
 380 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 that time, says Davies, " the managers were so well- 
 convinced of his importance to them, that they 
 offered him their own conditions, if he would engage 
 with them for a term of years." Elrington replied : 
 " I am truly sensible of the value of your offer, but 
 in Ireland I am so well rewarded for my services, 
 that I cannot think of leaving it, on any considera- 
 tion. There is not a gentleman's house to which 
 I am not a welcome visitor." 
 
 Booth has been called indolent, but he never was 
 so when in health and before a fitting audience. On 
 one thin night, indeed, he was enacting Othello 
 rather languidly, but he suddenly began to exert 
 himself to the utmost in the great scene of the third 
 act. On coming off the stage he was asked the 
 cause of this sudden effort. " I saw an Oxford man 
 in the pit," he answered, "for whose judgment I had 
 more respect than for that of the rest of the audi- 
 ence ; " and he played the Moor to that one but 
 efficient judge. Some causes of languor may, per- 
 haps, be traced to the too warm patronage he re- 
 ceived, or, rather, friendship, at the hands of the 
 nobility. It was no uncommon thing for a " carriage 
 and six " to be in waiting for him, the equipage of 
 some court friend, which conveyed him in what 
 was then considered the brief period of three hours 
 to Windsor, and back again the next day in time for 
 play or rehearsal. This agitated sort of life seriously 
 affected his health, and on one occasion his recovery 
 was despaired of. But the public favourite was re- 
 stored to the town ; and learned Mattaire celebrated 
 the event in a Latin ode, in which he did honour to 
 the memory of Betterton and the living and invigor-
 
 BARTON BOOTH 381 
 
 ated genius of Booth. That genius was not so per- 
 fect as that of his great predecessor. When able to 
 go to the theatre, though not yet able to perform, 
 he saw Wilks play two of his parts, Jaffier and 
 Hastings, and heard the applause which was 
 awarded to his efforts ; and the sound was ungrate- 
 ful to the ears of the philosophical and unimpassioned 
 Cato. But Jaffier was one of his triumphs ; and he 
 whose tenderness, pity, and terror had touched the 
 hearts of the whole audience, was painfully affected 
 at the triumph of another, though achieved by differ- 
 ent means. 
 
 One of the secrets of his own success lay, undoubt- 
 edly, in his education, feeling, and judgment. It may 
 be readily seen, from Aaron Hill's rather elaborate 
 criticism, that he was an actor who made " points ; " 
 "he could soften and slide over, with an elegant 
 negligence, the improprieties of the part he acted ; 
 while, on the contrary, he could dwell with energy 
 upon the beauties, as if he exerted a latent spirit, 
 which he kept back for such an occasion, that he 
 might alarm, awaken, and transport in those places 
 only which were worthy of his best exertions." This 
 was really to depend on "points," and was, perhaps, 
 a defect in a player of whom it has been said, that 
 " he had learning to understand perfectly what it was 
 his part to speak, and judgment to know how it 
 agreed or disagreed with his character." The fol- 
 lowing, by Hill, is as graphic as anything in Gibber : 
 "Booth had a talent at discovering the passions, 
 where they lay hid in some celebrated parts by the 
 injudicious practice of other actors ; when he had 
 discovered, he soon grew able to express them ; and
 
 382 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 his secret of attaining this great lesson of the theatre 
 was an adaptation of his look to his voice, by which 
 artful imitation of nature the variations in the sound 
 of his words gave propriety to every change in his 
 countenance. So that it was Mr. Booth's peculiar 
 felicity to be heard and seen the same, whether as 
 the pleased, the grieved, the pitying, the reproachful, 
 or the angry. One would be almost tempted to bor- 
 row the aid of a very bold figure, and to express this 
 excellency the more significantly by permission to 
 affirm that the blind might have seen him in his 
 voice, and the deaf have heard him in his visage." 
 
 In his later years, says a critic, "his merit as an 
 actor was unrivalled, and even so extraordinary, as 
 to be almost beyond the reach of envy." His 
 Othello, Cato, and his Polydore, in the "Orphan," 
 in which he was never equalled, were long the theme 
 of admiration to his survivors, as were in a less de- 
 gree his sorrowing and not roaring Lear, his manly 
 yet not blustering Hotspur. Dickey Brass and Dori- 
 mant, Wildair and Sir Charles Easy, Pinchwife, Man- 
 ley, and Young Bevil were among the best of his 
 essays in comedy, where, however, he was surpassed 
 by Wilks. " But then I believe," says a critic, " no 
 one will say he did not appear the fine gentleman in 
 the character of Bevil in the ' Conscious Lovers.' It 
 is said that he once played Falstaff in the presence 
 of Queen Anne, <to the delight of the whole audi- 
 ence.' " 
 
 Aaron Hill, curiously statistical, states that, by 
 the peculiar delivery of certain sentiments in Cato, 
 Booth was always sure of obtaining from eighteen to 
 twenty rounds of applause during the evening
 
 BARTON BOOTH 383 
 
 marks of approval both of matter and manner. Like 
 Bettetfon, he abounded in feeling. There was noth- 
 ing of the stolidity of " Punch " in either of them. 
 Betterton is said to have sometimes turned as " white 
 as his neck-cloth " on seeing his father's ghost ; while 
 Booth, when playing the Ghost to Betterton's Ham- 
 let, was once so horror-stricken at his distraught 
 aspect, as to be too disconcerted to proceed, for a 
 while, in his part. Either actor, however, knew how 
 far to safely yield themselves to feeling. Judgment 
 was always within call ; the head ready to control the 
 heart, however wildly it might be impelled by the 
 latter. Baron, the French actor, did not know bet- 
 ter than they that, while rules may teach the actor 
 not to raise his arms above his head, he will do well 
 to break the rule if passion carry him that way. 
 " Passion," as Baron remarked, " knows more than 
 art." 
 
 I have noticed the report that Booth and Wilks 
 were jealous of each other ; I think there was more 
 of emulation than of envy between them. Booth 
 could make sacrifices in favour of young actors as 
 unreservedly as Betterton. I find, even when he 
 was in possession, as it was called, of all the leading 
 parts, that he as often played Laertes, or even Hora- 
 tio, as the Ghost or Hamlet. His Laertes was won- 
 derfully fine, and, in a great actor's hands, may be 
 made, in the fifth act at least, equal with the princely 
 Dane himself. Again, although his Othello was one 
 of his grandest impersonations, he would take Cassio 
 in order to give an aspirant a chance of triumph in 
 the Moor. In " Macbeth," Booth played, one night, 
 the hero of the piece, on another, Ban quo, and on a
 
 384 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 third the little part of Lennox. He was quite con- 
 tent that Gibber should play Wolsey while he capti- 
 vated the audience by enacting the king. His 
 Henry was a mixture of frank humour, dignity, and 
 sternness. Theophilus Gibber says enough to con- 
 vince us that Booth, in the king, could be familiar 
 without being vulgar, and that his anger was of the 
 quality that excites terror. He pronounced the four 
 words, " Go thy ways, Kate," with such a happy 
 emphasis as to win admiration and applause ; and 
 " when he said, ' Now, to breakfast with what appe- 
 tite you may,' his expression was rapid and vehe- 
 ment, and his look tremendous." 
 
 The credit attached to the acting of inferior parts 
 by leading players was shared with Booth by Wilks 
 and Gibber. Of the latter, his son says that, " though 
 justly esteemed the first comedian of his time, and 
 superior to all we have since beheld, he has played 
 several parts, to keep up the spirit of some comedies, 
 which you will now scarcely find one player in twenty 
 who will not reject as beneath his Mock-Excellence." 
 
 Booth could, after all, perhaps, occasionally be lan- 
 guid without the excuse of illness. He would play 
 his best to a single man in the pit whom he recog- 
 nised as a playgoer and a judge of acting ; but to an 
 unappreciating audience he could exhibit an almost 
 contemptuous disinclination to exert himself. On 
 one occasion of this sort he was made painfully sen- 
 sible of his mistake, and a note was addressed to him 
 from the stage-box, the purport of which was to know 
 whether he was acting for his own diversion or in the 
 service and for the entertainment of the public ? 
 
 On another occasion, with a thin house and a cold
 
 BARTON BOOTH 385 
 
 audience, he was languidly going through one of his 
 usually grandest impersonations, namely, Pyrrhus. 
 At his very dullest scene he started into the utmost 
 brilliancy and effectiveness. His eye had just previ- 
 ously detected in the pit a gentleman named Stan- 
 yan, the friend of Addison and Steele and the 
 correspondent of the Earl of Manchester. Stanyan 
 was an accomplished man and a judicious critic. 
 Booth played to him with the utmost care and 
 corresponding success. " No, no ! " he exclaimed, as 
 he passed behind the scenes, radiant with the effect 
 he had produced, " I will not have it said at Button's 
 that Barton Booth is losing his powers ! " 
 
 Some indolence was excusable, however, in actors 
 who ordinarily laboured as Booth did. As an instance 
 of the toil which they had to endure for the sake of 
 applause, I will notice that, in the season of 1712-13, 
 when Booth studied, played, and triumphed in Cato, 
 he, within not many weeks, studied and performed 
 five original and very varied characters, Cato being 
 the last of a roll which included Arviragus, in the 
 " Successful Pirate ; " Captain Stan worth, in the 
 "Female Advocates;" Captain Wildish, in "Hu- 
 mours of the Army ; " Cinna, in an adaptation of 
 Corneille's play ; and, finally, Cato. 
 
 No doubt Booth was finest when put upon his 
 mettle. In May, 1726, for instance, Giffard from 
 Dublin appeared at Drury Lane, as the Prince of 
 Wales, in " Henry IV." The debutant was known 
 to be an admirer of the Hotspur of roaring Elring- 
 ton. The Percy was one of Booth's most perfect 
 exhibitions ; and ill as he was on the night he was to 
 play it to Giffard's Harry, he protested that he would
 
 386 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 surprise the newcomer, and the house too; and he 
 played with such grace, fire, and energy, that the 
 audience were beside themselves with ecstasy, and 
 the new actor was profuse at the side scenes, and 
 even out of hearing of Booth, in acknowledgment 
 of the great master and his superiority over every 
 living competitor. 
 
 Betterton cared little if his audience was select, 
 provided it also was judicious ; Booth, however, loved 
 a full house, though he could play his best to a soli- 
 tary, but competent, individual in the pit. He con- 
 fessed that he considered profit after fame, and 
 thought the large audiences tended to the increase 
 of both. The intercourse between audience and 
 actor was, in his time, more intimate and familiar 
 than it is now. Thus we see Booth entering a 
 coffee-house in Bow Street, one morning after he 
 had played Varanes, on the preceding night. The 
 gentlemen present, all playgoers as naturally as they 
 were coffee-house frequenters, cluster round him and 
 acknowledge the pleasure they had enjoyed in wit- 
 nessing him act. These pleasant morning critics 
 only venture to blame him for allowing such un- 
 meaning stuff as the pantomime of " Perseus and 
 Andromeda" to follow the classical tragedy and 
 mar its impression. But the ballet-pantomime 
 draws great houses, and is, therefore, a less indig- 
 nity in Booth's eye than half empty benches. It 
 was not the business of managers, he said, to be 
 wise to empty boxes. "There were many more 
 spectators," he said, " than men of taste and judg- 
 ment ; and if by the artifice of a pantomime they 
 could entice a greater number to partake of a good
 
 BARTON BOOTH 387 
 
 play than could be drawn without it, he could not 
 see any great harm in it ; and that, as those pieces 
 were performed after the play, they were no inter- 
 ruption to it." In short, he held pantomimes to be 
 rank nonsense, which might be rendered useful, after 
 the fashion of his explanation. 
 
 His retirement from the stage may be laid to the 
 importunity of Mr. Theobald, who urged him to act 
 in a play, for a moment attributed to Shakespeare, 
 "The Double Falsehood." Booth struggled through 
 the part of Julio, for a week, in the season of 1727-28, 
 and then withdrew, utterly cast down, and in his forty- 
 sixth year. Broxham, Friend, Colebatch, and Mead, 
 came with their canes, perukes, pills, and proposals, 
 and failing to restore him, they sent him away from 
 London. The sick player and his wife wandered 
 from town to Bath, from the unavailing springs there 
 to Ostend, thence to Antwerp, and on to Holland, to 
 consult Boerhaave, who could only tell the invalid 
 that in England a man should never leave off his 
 winter clothing till midsummer-day, and that he 
 should resume it the day after. From Holland the 
 sad couple came home to Hampstead, and ultimately 
 back to London, where fever, jaundice, and other 
 maladies attacked Booth with intermitting severity. 
 Here, in May, 1733, a quack doctor persuaded him 
 that, if he would take "crude mercury," it would not 
 only prevent the return of his fever, but effectually 
 cure him of all his complaints. As we are gravely 
 informed that within five days the poor victim " took 
 within two ounces of two pounds' weight of mercury," 
 we are not surprised to hear that at the end of that 
 time Booth was in extremis, and that Sir Hans Sloane
 
 388 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 was at his bedside to accelerate, as it would seem, the 
 catastrophe. 
 
 To peruse what followed is like reading the details 
 of an assassination. As if the two pounds, minus two 
 ounces, of mercury were not enough, poor Booth was 
 bled profusely at the jugular, his feet were plastered, 
 and his scalp was blistered ; he was assailed in various 
 ways by cathartics, and mocked, I may so call it, by 
 emulsions ; the Daily Post announced that he lay 
 a-dying at his house in Hart Street ; other notices 
 pronounced him moribund in Charles Street ; but he 
 was alive on the morning of the loth of May, 1733, 
 when a triad of prescriptions being applied against 
 him, Cato at length happily succumbed. But the 
 surgeons would not let the dead actor rest; they 
 opened his body, and dived into its recesses, and 
 called things by strong names, and avoided technical- 
 ities ; and after declaring everything to be very much 
 worse than the state of Denmark, as briefly described 
 by Hamlet, Alexander Small, the especial examiner, 
 signing the report, added a postscript thereto, imply- 
 ing that, " There was no fault in any part of his body, 
 but what is here mentioned." Poor fellow ! We are 
 told that he recovered from his fever, but that he 
 died of the jaundice, helped, I think, by the treatment. 
 
 A few days subsequently the body was privately 
 interred in Cowley Church, near Uxbridge, where he 
 occasionally resided. A few old friends, and some 
 dearer than friends, accompanied him to the grave. 
 His will was as a kiss on either cheek of his beautiful 
 widow, and a slap on both cheeks of sundry of his 
 relations. To the former he left everything he had 
 possessed, and for the very best of reasons. " As I
 
 BARTON BOOTH 389 
 
 have been," he says, "a man much known and talked 
 of, my not leaving legacies to my relations may give 
 occasion to censorious people to reflect upon my con- 
 duct in this latter act of my life ; therefore, I think it 
 necessary to declare that I have considered my cir- 
 cumstances, and finding, upon a strict examination, 
 that all I am now possessed of does not amount to two- 
 thirds of the fortune my wife brought me on the day 
 of our marriage, together with the yearly additions 
 and advantages since arising from her laborious em- 
 ployment on the stage during twelve years past, I 
 thought myself bound by honesty, honour, and grati- 
 tude due to her constant affection, not to give away 
 any part of the remainder of her fortune at my death, 
 having already bestowed, in free gifts upon my sister, 
 Barbara Rogers, upward of ; 1,300 out of my wife's 
 substance, and full ^400 of her money on my unde- 
 serving brother, George Booth (besides the gifts they 
 received before my marriage), and all those benefits 
 were conferred on my said brother and sister, from 
 time to time, at the earnest solicitation of my wife, 
 who was perpetually entreating me to continue the 
 allowance I gave my relations before my marriage. 
 The inhuman return that has been made my wife for 
 these obligations, by my sister, I forbear to mention." 
 This was justice without vengeance, and worthy of 
 the sage, of whom Booth was the most finished repre- 
 sentative. The generosity of Hester Santlow, too, 
 has been fittingly preserved in the will ; the whole of 
 which, moreover, is a social illustration of the times. 
 In Westminster, " Booth Street " keeps up the 
 actor's name ; and " Cowley Street " the remem- 
 brance of the proprietorship of a country estate near
 
 390 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Uxbridge. To pass through the former street is like 
 being transported to the times of Queen Anne. It is 
 a quaint old locality, very little changed since the 
 period in which Barton built it. No great stretch of 
 imagination is required to fancy the original Pyrrhus 
 and Cato gliding along the shady side, with a smile 
 on his lips and a certain fire in his eye. He is think- 
 ing of Miss Santlow ! 
 
 With Booth slowly dying, and Mrs. Oldfield often 
 too ill to act, the prospects of Drury began to wane in 
 1728-29. Elrington could not supply the place of the 
 former ; nor Mrs. Porter and Mrs. Horton combined, 
 that of the latter. Gibber carefully instructed his 
 son Theophilus in the part of Pistol, which became 
 his one great part, and the appearance of Miss Rafter 
 as Dorinda, in Dryden's version of the " Tempest," 
 on the 2d of January, 1729, marks the first step in 
 the bright and uncheckered career of one who is 
 better remembered as Kitty Clive, of whom, more 
 hereafter. She was not able to save Gibber's pas- 
 toral comedy, "Love in a Riddle," from condemna- 
 tion by an audience who had the ill manners, as it 
 was considered, to hiss, despite a royal presence in 
 the house. 
 
 As the new names rose the old ones fell off, and 
 Congreve and Steele the first rich and a gentleman, 
 the second needy, but a gentleman too died in 1729, 
 leaving no one but Gibber fit to compete with them 
 in comedy. Musical pieces, such as the "Village 
 Opera," and the " Lovers' Opera," born of Gay's suc- 
 cess, brought no such golden results to their authors 
 or the house, which was still happy in retaining Wilks.
 
 BARTON BOOTH 391 
 
 On the other hand, in the Fields, where ballad-opera 
 had been a mine of wealth to astonished managers, 
 classical tragedy took the lead, with Quin leading in 
 everything, and growing in favour with a town whose 
 applause could no longer be claimed by Booth. But 
 classical tragedy reaped no golden harvests. Barford's 
 "Virgin Queen " lives but in a line of Pope to Ar- 
 buthnot. The " Themistocles " (Quin) of young 
 Madden, whom Ireland ought to remember as one 
 of her benefactors who was no mere politician, lived 
 but for a few nights. Mrs. Heywood succeeded as 
 ill with her romantic tragedy, " Frederick, Duke of 
 Brunswick," which was five acts of flattery to the 
 house of Hanover, some of whose members yawned 
 over it, ungratefully. But the "Beggar's Opera" 
 could always fill the house whether Miss Cantrell 
 warbled Polly, with the old cast, or children played 
 all the parts a foolish novelty, not unattractive. 
 Hawker, an actor, vainly tried to rival Gay, with a 
 serio-comic opera, the "Wedding," and Gay himself 
 was doomed to suffer disappointment ; for the author- 
 ities suppressed his " Polly," a vapid continuation of 
 the fortunes of Macheath and the lady, and thereby 
 drove almost to the disaffection of which he was 
 accused, not only Gay, but his patrons, the Duke and 
 Duchess of Queensberry, who punished the court by 
 absenting themselves from its pleasures and duties. 
 The poet, who desired nothing but the joys of a quiet 
 life, a good table, and a suit of blue and silver, all 
 which he enjoyed beneath the ducal roof, happiest of 
 mercer's apprentices, found compensation in publish- 
 ing his work by subscription, whereby he realised so 
 large a sum as to satisfy his utmost wishes.
 
 392 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 Drury Lane was not fortunate in any of its new 
 pieces in the season of 1729-30. It was, perhaps, 
 unfortunate that Mrs. Oldfield, by her recommenda- 
 tion, and by her acting, obtained even partial suc- 
 cess for a comedy, by the Rev. James Millar, the 
 " Humours of Oxford." This satirical piece brought 
 the author into trouble with his university, at some 
 of whose members it was aimed, and it did not tend 
 to raise him in the estimation of his congregation in 
 Conduit Street. 
 
 The tragedy of " Timoleon " was ruined by the 
 zeal of the author's friends, who crowded the house, 
 and as loudly applauded the candle-snuffers and fur- 
 niture as they did Mills or Mrs. Porter. Martyn, the 
 author, had been a linen-draper, but his epitaph in 
 Lewisham Churchyard describes him as " one of the 
 best bred men in England." He was certainly well 
 connected, but he exhibited more efficiency in colo- 
 nising Georgia than in writing poetry. His " Timo- 
 leon " had neither beauty of style, nor incident. 
 
 This season, too, saw the first dramatic attempt of 
 Thomson, in " Sophonisba." Lee's tragedy of that 
 name used to drown the female part of the house in 
 tears ; but Thomson's could not stir even his own 
 friends to enthusiasm. They rose from the full-dress 
 rehearsals to which they were invited, dulled in sense 
 rather than touched or elevated. Thomson's play is 
 far less tender than Lee's ; his Sophonisba (the last 
 character originally played by Mrs. Oldfield) more 
 stern and patriotic, and less loving. The author 
 himself described her as a "female Cato," and in 
 the epilogue not too delicately indicated that if the 
 audience would only applaud a native poet,
 
 BARTON BOOTH 393 
 
 " Then other Shakespeares yet may rouse the stage, 
 And other Otways melt another age." 
 
 " Sophonisba," which Thomson was not afraid to 
 set above the heroine of Corneille, abounds in plati- 
 tudes, and it was fatal to Gibber, who, never tolerable 
 in tragedy, was fairly hissed out of the character of 
 Scipio, which he surrendered to a promising player, 
 Williams. The latter was violently hissed also on 
 the first night of his acting Scipio, he bore so close a 
 resemblance to his predecessor. Mrs. Oldfield, alone, 
 made a sensation, especially in the delivery of the 
 line, 
 
 " Not one base word of Carthage on thy soul ! " 
 
 Her grandeur of action, her stern expression, and her 
 powerful tone of voice elicited the most enthusiastic 
 applause. Exactly two months later, on the 28th of 
 April, 1730, she acted Lady Brute, and therewith 
 suddenly terminated her thirty years of service, 
 dying exactly six months after illness compelled her 
 to withdraw. 
 
 Before noticing more fully the career of Mrs. Old- 
 field, let me record here, that on the night she played 
 Lady Brute in the "Provoked Wife," the part of 
 Mademoiselle was acted by Charlotte Charke, the 
 wife of a good singer, but a worthless man, and the 
 youngest child of Colley Gibber. There seems to 
 have been a touch of insanity, certainly there was no 
 power of self-control, in this poor woman. From 
 her childhood she had been wild, wayward, and rebel- 
 lious ; self-taught as a boy might be, and with nothing 
 feminine in her character or pursuits, With self-
 
 394 THEIR MAJESTIES' SERVANTS 
 
 assertion too, she was weak enough to be won by a 
 knave with a sweet voice, whose cruel treatment 
 drove his intractable wife to the stage, where she 
 failed to profit by her fine opportunities. 
 
 The corresponding season at Lincoln's Inn Fields 
 was the usual one of an unfashionable house ; but 
 Quin, .Ryan, Walker, and Boheme were actors who 
 made way against Wilks, Gibber, Mills, and Bridge- 
 water. No new piece of any value was produced ; 
 the only incidents worth recording being the playing 
 of Macheath by Quin, for his benefit ; and the sud- 
 den death of Spiller, stricken by apoplexy, as he was 
 playing in the " Rape of Proserpine." He was inim- 
 itable in old men, though he himself was young ; but 
 whatever he played, he so identified himself with his 
 character, that Spiller disappeared from the eyes and 
 the thoughts of an audience unconsciously deluded 
 by the artist. 
 
 As the town grew, so also did theatres increase; 
 that in Goodman's Fields, and the little house in the 
 Haymarket, were open this season. At the former 
 Giffard and his wife led in tragedy and comedy ; but 
 the company was generally weak. Not so the authors 
 who wrote for the house. First among them was 
 Fielding, a young fellow of three and twenty ; bred 
 to the law, but driven to the drama by the inability 
 of his father, the general, to supply him with funds. 
 His first play, " Love in Several Masques," was acted 
 at Drury Lane in 1728 ; his second, and a better, the 
 " Temple Beau," was played at Goodman's Fields. 
 
 Ralph, who had been a schoolmaster in Philadel- 
 phia, and came to England to thrive by political, 
 satirical, or dramatic writings, and to live for ever in
 
 BARTON BOOTH 395 
 
 the abuse lavished on him by Pope, supplied a ballad- 
 opera, the " Fashionable Lady," which was intended 
 to rival the "Beggar's Opera." To Macheath-Walker 
 is ascribed a tragedy, the " Fate of Villainy ; " and 
 Mottley, the disappointed candidate for place, and 
 the compiler of " Joe Miller's Jests," Miller being 
 a better joker than he was an actor, wrote for this 
 house his "Widow Bewitched," the last and poorest 
 of his contributions to the stage. 
 
 For the Haymarket, Fielding wrote the only piece 
 which has come down to our times, his immortal bur- 
 lesque-tragedy of " Tom Thumb," in which the weak- 
 ness and bombast of late or contemporary writers are 
 copied with wonderful effect. Young suffered severely 
 by this ; and the " Oh, Huncamunca ! Huncamunca, 
 oh ! " was a dart at the " Oh, Sophonisba ! Sophonisba, 
 oh ! " of Jamie Thomson. Of the other pieces I need 
 not disturb the dust. Let me rather, contemplating 
 that of Mrs. Oldfield, glance at the career of that 
 great actress, who living knew no rival, and in her 
 peculiar line has never been excelled. 
 
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